PAWS Finds New Partners

A smiling Dutch couple at Reddingsboei await the arrival of a PAWS dog they had come to adopt

New hope - and new homes - for PAWS dogs abroad.

As part of the re-organisation following PAWS financial crisis earlier this year, we have now formed partnerships with several new organisations abroad to find homes for animals from the PAWS Shelter.

In the Netherlands we are already sending dogs to three organisations:Reddingsboei, Greyhound Friends and Dierenhulp Zonder Grenzen (Animal Aid without Frontiers) with whom PAWS have already established important and valued relationships. Since March, 58 dogs have gone to Holland in three separate transports. A further two are currently being planned. PAWS is also working with three animal rescue organisations in Germany, one of which has a particular interest in smaller dogs.

PAWS Holland – for ten years an invaluable source of homing dogs from Spain and provider of major financial support – will continue to work with PAWS Spain, although it will be operating on a much smaller scale than before. Rather than seek large numbers of homes for dogs, it will concentrate on a smaller number of special cases, and on providing gifts of food supplies and fundraising. The board of PAWS Holland – an entirely independent charitable foundation in the Netherlands - will review this plan at the end of the year and decide if the foundation can continue in this way. We are delighted with this news and send them our best wishes for good progress.

The big lesson learned from the recent crisis is that in such an uncertain financial landscape PAWS needs to find as many different outlets as possible, if we are to continue homing the large number of dogs we have established in recent years. PAWS has now been operating in this area of Spain for more than 20 years. We have had to seek outlets abroad because homing them locally has now diminished to a trickle. So many people here already have a PAWS animal (or several!). We are looking for new partners in Germany, France and the UK. And of course our valuable and productive relationship with Ibizan Hound Rescue in the north of England will continue.

PAWS Cat section deals with a much smaller number of animals, but has now also begun to send cats abroad. So far this year 11 cats have gone to Katzenherzen in Germany, courtesy of transport provided by Almerimar Strays. Dierenhulp Zonder Grenzen (see above) in the Netherlands also take in cats. We are presently exploring means of transporting them since unfortunately transporting dogs and cats together in the the present PAWS van raises problems.

However the encouraging and valuable relationships being pursued with all these different organisations depend entirely on one uncertain factor - reliable transport. We have been using the present second-hand van for nearly five years to transport a stream of animals in all weathers on journeys of many thousands of kilometres. Not surprisingly it is approaching a terminal condition! Acquiring a reliable new van has become a number one fundraising priority. Without it we cannot create the room at the PAWS Shelter to take in the many new animals who desperately need our care.

(June 2011)