ELECTRA sponsored by: Diana Doglover
PORTUGUESE MOUNTAIN DOG, FEMALE
ELECTRA is a small version of a Portuguese Mountain Dog, Cao da Serra da Estrela.
She was one of 30 PMD's we rescued from an old breeder in the north of Portugal in June 2014. The whole story is on our website under Estrela rescue.
All dogs were locked up in containers or wooden shacks or concrete cells and allowed to breed. Pups were born in these places and sold. Dogs were in terrible conditions and some died quite soon after the rescue. Others had tumours and other life threatening conditions and died in the first year after being rescued.
Electra was rescued together with her mother Camilla and her brother Tristan. Tristan got adopted and lives a happy life in Sweden.
Electra is very nervous of humans and cannot be adopted. She will stay with us forever. We think she was born in 2013 and she lives in a group with Ronnie, her mother Camilla and auntie Francesca.
FAWLTY sponsored by: Ed Louwers
PODENGO CROSS MALE
FAWLTY appeared at a Swiss couples house, full of ticks, fleas and extremely thin. Abandoned or lost, who knows. He was about 5 months then. The couple already had animals and couldn't/wouldn't keep him so we felt sorry for the dog and took him in as usual! Fawlty is a lovely boy but a great attention seeker and he prefers women to men. In hindsight, we do believe he was badly treated by a man before he came to us.
He is very social with all the dogs and comes when you call him. He has lived in our kennel far too long now and needs a permanent home with a person or people who have time and patience for him.
His estimated date of birth is 22 November 2011, which means he is 10+ years now, castrated, vaccinated and tested negative for blood parasites. As a young dog he has been adopted by a UK family but returned one week later as he has bitten his dogwalker. Since then he is with us and we think he will stay with us forever.
CAMILLA sponsored by:
PORTUGUESE MOUNTAIN DOG, FEMALE
CAMILLA is a small version of a Portuguese Mountain Dog, Cao da Serra da Estrela.
She was one of 30 PMD's we rescued from an old breeder in the north of Portugal in June 2014. The whole story is on our website under Estrela rescue.
All dogs were locked up in containers or wooden shacks or concrete cells and allowed to breed. Pups were born in these places and sold. Dogs were in terrible conditions and some died quite soon after the rescue. Others had tumours and other life threatening conditions and died in the first year after being rescued.
Camilla had a daughter Electra and a son Tristan. Tristan got adopted but Electra is still with us.
After so many years Camilla is still very nervous of humans and cannot be adopted. She will stay with us forever. We think she was born in 2010 and she lives in a group with Ronnie. There are three more like her in that group, which are Bruna, Francesca and daughter Electra.
RONNIE sponsored by: Marianne Haasnoot
MIXED BREED, MALE
RONNIE, born mid 2012, was rescued in May 2013 from a killing station (= Perrera), in Huelva, Spain.
The volunteers there sent out an SOS because they were killing 5 dogs a day because of overcrowded kennels.
We went and took out 7 dogs of which 6 were homed but Ronnie, who was lying half dead under several large dogs, has never recovered mentally from this traumatic experience. He is afraid of all humans and will not let anyone touch him at all. He is fine and happy with the dogs he lives with and will stay with us forever.
FRANCESCA sponsored by: Nicole Ischer and Pascal Guelat
PORTUGUESE MOUNTAIN DOG, FEMALE
FRANCESCA is a small version of a Portuguese Mountain Dog, Cao da Serra da Estrela.
She was one of 30 PMD's we rescued from an old breeder in the north of Portugal in June 2014. The whole story is on our website under Estrela rescue.
All dogs were locked up in containers or wooden shacks or concrete cells and allowed to breed. Pups were born in these places and sold. Dogs were in terrible conditions and some died quite soon after the rescue. Others had tumours and other life threatening conditions and died in the first year after being rescued.
Francesca had a daughter Florence, who was adopted in Wales.
Francesca is very nervous of humans and cannot be adopted. She will stay with us forever. We think she was born in 2008 and she lives in a group with Ronnie. There are three more like her in that group, which are Bruna, Camilla and Electra.
BRUNA sponsored by: Diana Doglover
PORTUGUESE MOUNTAIN DOG, FEMALE
Ir was June 2014 that BRUNA also came from the Hell Hole in the north of Portugal.
She lived in a dark, long narrow concrete cell and had pups in there. When we found her she only had one puppy of 3 weeks old. She was petrified of everything outside, just like Francesca, so we put her and her pup in our cattery in the garden where they were together and quite safe and could see plants, trees, other dogs and breath fresh air. The pup we called Brunetto and he developed into a normal dog and now lives in Scotland. Bruna is so very scared of humans and runs away all the time. She has a kennel to sleep in and when she gets in there in her basket we can stroke her. She will now take a biscuit out of your hand, after so many years with us. She cannot go for adoption and will stay here forever. She was born is 2011.
CHIARA sponsored by: our friend Irene
MIXED BREED, FEMALE
CHIARA is one of 7 female pups born in the wild at Christmas time 2015 to a stray mother we called Cindy in a village in the hills west of Sao Bras. All were very “wild” when discovered and Cindy and Chiara had to be caught in a dog trap.
Female pups HAVE TO BE RESCUED as if they were to stay in the wild it would mean an average of 40 pups by next Christmas.
The girls were very pretty and soon had adoption families abroad BUT when the time came for Chiara we realised she could not go at that moment. She was still too traumatised and ran away from everybody and every strange thing.
She like to sit on the dog sofa and when we move slowly and talk very softly she allows us to sit next to her and stroke her.
ISOLDA sponsored by: Nicole Ischer and Pascal Guelat
MIXED BREED, FEMALE
ISOLDA, she was born mid 2009 and was a wild female living at a local supermarket and had pups several times. One day a rescue group caught the pups and took them away BUT they left the mother which means she would be pregnant again in 6 months and then more pups and more pups......4 of the pups got very ill with Parvo and we nursed them on drips in our guest room because the vet could not accommodate so many sick pups. One died in our arms!! The other 3 survived and were adopted in Holland. They were very beautiful and we still have contact today.
However, it took us months to capture the mother, months of patient feeding and getting her confidence sitting on the grass in front of the shop. She was very nervous of all humans. It was August 2011 when we were able to catch her and we took her home and let her find her own way around the garden and the garage. It took us TWO years before we could touch her.
Now she is much more relaxed and we can stroke her when she wants it.
But she cannot go for adoption anywhere as we are afraid she will then become very nervous again so she will stay with us forever.
Isolda is 10+ years living with us.