As the title suggests this is Val’s diary of her life which revolves around the dogs and cats that she and her husband Mino have rescued.
Since moving to the southern Salento region of Puglia, and before, Val and Mino have dedicated their lives to rescuing and caring for abandoned dogs and cats. Val is English and Mino is Italian, originally from Squinzano in Puglia. Val and Mino met when Mino was working and living in the UK. Together they ran their restaurant Da Mino in Dorset before eventually moving to the Algarve in Portugal to run a restaurant there and where they saved their first abandoned dog. Early in 2005 they retired and decided to return to Mino’s homeland, Puglia.
At Puglia Pooches, we know too well how hard it is to lose a much-loved pet, young or old. It is so much harder when a little one goes too soon, especially one as delightful, loving and entertaining as Louie.
This week I took Selina to the vet, she needed some dental treatment. Our vet removed three teeth and cleaned the rest. I picked her up in the evening, she was so happy to see me. It’s particularly difficult for me at the moment as Mino is in hospital, he is awaiting results of various…
Hello everyone, This is mostly for friends and friends of friends in Italy. These two lovely dogs are looking for new homes. The person that has them has to, for personal reasons, relocate to the UK, and cannot take all of his dogs and cats with him. Polar and Molly are brother and sister, they…
This little kitten is very quickly becoming part of the family. You might remember Mino found her and her two siblings abandoned, thrown away in a big bin, not far from where we live. One kitten was already dead, the other one died not long after us getting her home, which left this one. She…
Yesterday morning, at 5 am, Lupo suffered a stroke. He could not get up, his legs had given out. Mino and I carried him to the car, boy oh boy, he’s a big dog… Mino went off looking for an emergency vet. An hour later he was back, there was nowhere open at that time.…
Just when I thought my heart couldn’t take much more, our precious Reuben has just died. The second dog in a few days after taking that bloody flea tablet Simparica, which contains the same vile stuff as Bravecto, if only we had known we were giving our dogs the same stuff, we definitely wouldn’t have…
Some evil shitty bastard dumped these little kittens outside an abandoned villa opposite to where we live this morning. There were three but sadly one had already died. They are no more than a couple of days old, their eyes are still closed and they were ice cold, and I mean ice cold. We quickly…
Please please please do not use the flea treatment Simparica Trio, Bravecto, Nexgard and Credilio, they all have the same chemical class of Isoxzoines, which sadly all have reports of serious adverse reactions and death. Your vet won’t tell you this! For several years I have been telling family and friends not to use Bravecto…
We would just like to wish you a very happy Easter 🐣 . Here’s hoping you are having a good one, in these challenging times. Although we are in lockdown in Italy, we were allowed to be visited by two friends, so we were lucky to have Debbie and Bob for round for lunch. Debbie…
Dear little Dottie is in desperate need of a trim, but at the moment it’s still too cold. So she will have to remain scruffy until the weather warms up a bit. She doesn’t mind how she looks !! Our dear Lupo is becoming very old and frail now. We have had him for 11…
Firstly let me welcome you to my new website. I hope you like it. Couldn’t have done it without Debbie. Both of us have worked really hard, Debbie especially. And thanks for your patience with the emails you have been receiving. We are almost finished adding all the dogs and cats. We started the year…
In telling the stories of all the rescues, there are a few here and there that I have missed out, not many, just a few that were quick turn around so to speak. But to reach 70 +, is I think, quite an achievement for us. So I thought I would share with you how…
I would like to wish you all a Happy New Year. After the crazy year, we have just endured, we could all do with a lot of good luck and the hope for better things to come. For this New Year, my hope is that you and yours remain healthy, happy and safe and your…
Happy New Year to you all …. hopefully it will be a better year than 2020. If you are reading this you have found your way to the new Puglia Pooches website. If you visited the old site then you will have noticed that, at the moment, a lot of content is missing. More content…
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