I have dedicated the
last 30 years of my life to saving animals, most of all galgos and I have
publicly denounced the abuse against these animals, I have even received
threats, more than once I have been told I would end up like them and I never
got scared, and now after all this, we still have to demonstrate our love of
animals .
When I thought up
Scooby 25 years ago, some things were very clear to me and one of them is the
happiness of the animals, I don’t like cages, even if they’re made out of gold,
they are still prisons, our dogs have to be in the refuge for months or even
years and dogs are social animals and need to live in groups, and that in a few
cases might lead to accidents. These things happen in all the refuges that I
know that the animals are not solitary, that is the price we need to pay, a
high price that we always try to prevent, but I am sure it even happens in your
houses with dogs that are together for many years, one day something happens
that disrupts the established order and
they just fight.. If anyone having more than two dogs tells me it never happens
to them is lying, I just don’t believe it, it even happened with my own dogs at
home so it is very obvious that it happens more often in a refuge, whatever
methods of prevention we are taking, there are always these impossible cases.
To pretend that you are able to achieve that in a refuge with over 500 dogs and
60 different patios nothing happens like this is simply crazy, but it is just
as or even more crazy to pretend that it
would be possible to prevent this or even insinuate that we would let this
happen because of neglect, I do not accept this from anyone. Instead of giving
stupid commentaries it would be better to offer feasible solutions, if there
are any . Even though I have been taking care of galgos for 25 years, there is
probably a lot to learn still. If you don’t like us to give them bread and
cans, give us the funds to provide them with proper food, if you don’t like the
fact that there are so many in one patio, make sure that you find them homes to
go to, since that is in fact your task. It is so easy to spread your comment,
as they say in my country: it is so easy to talk but it is harder to provide
food. Pay for a president with
revolutionary ideas that will take away any problem if you are capable of doing
it well, but please stop talking because the insults are easy and free to go
around but they do not benefit anybody, least of all the animals.
That was the part for
those it may concern, now are some general information:
During the years we
tried everything and gathered a lot of experience regarding dogs living in a pack.
We moved the
underdogs to other paddocks and found out that these dogs can be put anywhere,
they will be underdogs everywhere. We made groups of underdogs and found out
that also in these groups there will be less weak dogs who become more
self-confident and show dominant behaviour towards the others after a while. In
the last time we removed the dominant ones from the pack and found out that
after a short while others will move up and take their position. And that is
simply due to the fact that a pack of dog is and will always remain a
hierarchic system with non-equal members despite of domestication. Additional,
in a shelter environment without a human as alpha and not much of mental and
physical challenge for the dogs, the conflict potential is much higher.
Another fact is that
the Galgos have practically no subcutaneous fat and very short fur, what makes
them look so stunning beautiful like top athletes but in case of a fight this
is the worst combination at all. When other dogs just loose some hair or have
small superficial wounds, in a similar fight the Galgos can receive severe
injuries.
As we are neither
able to change the genetic behaviour of dogs in general nor the body structure
of Galgos in particular, we need to accept that we will always have to deal
with accidents, no matter what we do. We know that the banality of fate is
easier to bear when you have somebody to blame but please...stay fair.
FermÃn
