You Never Know What You Are Going to Find!

We get calls all the time that dogs are chained up, and sadly that is just life here, at first I wanted to unchain every dog, but too be honest that is impossible. So, now we have to take every case and look at all the evidence. How tight is the chain? is it heavy? is it long? Does the dog have access to food, water and shelter? Is the dog in good condition?

Spanish people chain their dogs, it is common, is it right, nope, but it is normal, and if the dog is not being "mis treated" then there are others to save that are in worse condition. Another call we get is when people find dogs living in caves. Again very normal here, Canarians see these as free kennels, and don't expect people to stumble across their dogs.

One day we received a call that there were dogs in a cave, eating scraps, dirty water, same old story, but then the woman told me they were eating a dead dog. This was a step too far, so off we went to find this cave. Now the problem is even in my car many of these places are not accessible, so I had to walk.

If you know me, walking causes whining, and I complained over and over on our 25 mile hike.... ok it was 5 minutes, but that is not the point. When we reached the cave, the smell was what hit me first, and then I saw it, there was a dead boxer.

It appeared to be in "good" health other than being dead of course, and the two remaining dogs weren't eating him, so I presumed the woman had made it up. Then I turned and saw the remains of another dog, which was lunch for the two dogs.

No water, the remains of dead animals to eat, and being chained in a small dark cave, I didn't need anymore reasons to take these dogs.

I understand farmers feeding their dogs scraps, but come on, feeding them dead dogs was another matter.

 We will never know what killed the boxer, but all we could do was ensure that the other dogs didn't end up the same way! Dogs will eat anything, so it was not their fault they had eaten their friend, but, they could potentially die themselves if it was a serious disease. 

 So off we went, back down the mountain with two dogs that had obviously not seen sunlight for a while. Trying to breathe fresh air, and get the smell of rotting dead dog out of our noses. Yet again just goes to show you never know what you are going to find when you go to rescue dogs!