Supremegermalene

Nice to see you on here! I saw your post on the 'other' forum OMG well I've defended you and recommended you to come on to here as the people are far more friendlier!

As to the dog situation, the Algarve has improved greatly I think because there are more dog charities now, in the main set up by expats, who keep an eye out. When I was younger I was horrified to find the way my MIL dealt with her cat's litter...they were taken to a big field and left in the middle to die.

gedscottish

Unfortunatly there are many horror stories to us that seem quite the normto others. A neighbour of ours had a bitch for 3 years... it had 5 pups, she kept one male & drowned the rest in her tank.....including the mother.
She told the story to my mother inlaw as if it were the thing to do as she wanted a male dog. Luckly I was not there...as im sure I would have to restrained from wringing her neck

Supremegermalene

That's so sad

1Dawn1

Sick...
Its a lack of education!!! Too many animal cruelty cases here. I know a few people who do a lot to rehome strays and unwanted dogs.

Bubbles67

This happens all too often in Central Portugal, the rural Portuguese do not see any problem with killing cats and dogs as they only see tham as utility animals not pets.

Cats are for catching mice and dogs as guards or for hunting, if you look at it from this point of view then you can understand why they do it (I am in no way agreeing with them, just saying I understand the way of life!)

There are many dogs her fastened to long, heavy metal chains all their life, they bark because they are unhappy and want attention but they are never going to get it from their Portuguese owners. I have one neighbour with small children at the same school as mine and they have an outside dog, chained up and always aggresive to people walking past. Recently they have got a house dog (pet) for the children, and they play with it in the garden where the older dog watches.....imagin the emotional traums that the older dog is going through.....it can't talk but now if you walk past it doesn't bark much, it just lies there.....I can imagin it dissappearing soon as it is no longer doing it's JOB!!

It makes me sad, but I am the newcomer and I am not going to tell my neighbours to change their way of life...things will change slowly...

Jur

Put the site in your signature, that is allowed and we can all view it. Are you just helping dogs or cats as well?

Jon_D

Dear cyber friends; let us not get too sanctimonious about this. I was brought up in the North East of England 70 years ago, and it was common practise to drown unwanted kitten and puppies in the rain water barrels outside the houses. Also homing pigeons were strangled when their racing days were over, generally after 3 years.

Sharon B

Jur, notice how the Portuguese forum actually is generally friendly towards animals and people!! Although I am not a great animal lover (enough problems with grandchildren) the Spanish forum was unduly cruel towards a grieving cat lover.

OrkneytoPortugal

Round our way it is common practice for cute little puppies and kittens to be abandoned on the edge of land belonging to English folk. We acquired one such, 2 days before Christmas last year - but I am dreading it happening again because we simply can't let ourselves become a rescue centre. Yet it is so hard to refuse them- even in the time it would take to drive them to the nearest legit animal rescue centre the kids would probably have bonded with it and refuse to let it go! Many estrangeiros I know are becoming over-run with cats and dogs this way, because they haven't the heart to say 'no'.

Jur

Yeah, It really depends though, but the Spain forum is very feisty. Moderator Sue just closed another thread.

Gosia

Hi FlyRib, I would like to answer to your question. There are LOTS of abandonded dogs in Portugal. I arrived here 3 years ago, quickly picked up 2 strays from the streets and when I found a third one with 3 puppies, I started to look for shelters and charities. I could not keep them all.... I found one shelter, they helped me to rehome them and I stayed with them ever since. I go there every Saturday, when I am off work, and I help as much as I can. I have seen everything. Owners coming to the shelter to abandon their dogs under whichever excuse (divorce, change of job, change of appartment, move to another city, dogs barks, dogs does big poos, dog leaves hair - and they want to exchange for one with short hair, everything). I have seen dogs attached to the gate of the shelter overnight and found by us in the morning, same for puppies in a carton box. Some dogs come accompanied by a piece of paper with a name. I have picked up myself dogs from the highway or national road (the last one yesterday), dirty, hungry, covered with ticks - they cannot have an owner. Found sick and old dogs wherever. An old dog never has an owner. We all live in the arae. We have it all covered - we know which dogs spent their days in the street and have an owner and which dogs appear from one day to another dumped there and they have no owner. Our shelter is the biggest in the area. If the dog is lost, this is the most obvious place to go. But not many dogs are retrieved liked this. There are hundreds thousands of dogs abandoned every year.
Behind that you have an enormous work of people (bunch of foreigners but mostly Portuguese, yes, there are some generous Portuguese in here too) who take care of the animals in the shelter, take them to the vet, walk them, organise adoptions fair, visit houses before rehoming, follow up on adoptions. People who basically sarifice whatever free time they have to help the animals.
We write a blog in English, you can read some stories here:
http://bianca-pet-rescue-adoption.blogspot.com/
and you can see our webpage: www.bianca.pt/english
it is quite informative I think.
Administration, I am not promoting anything, please don't delete it! It is a charity, please leave the webpage, maybe someone will adopt a dog or a cat.... You can write to [email protected] (they can also reply in English, French or Spanis).

FlyRib: we are in Sesimbra, 30 kms from Lisbon, in a rural area of high abandonment of animals. If you would like to come and visit us, you are welcome. I can who you around. We had a Swedish volunteer for 2 months, she was helping in the shelter!

I don't know if you are thinking about rehoming dogs to Sweden.... We work with a Dutch organisation, we rehome some dogs to Holland.