This is an important message to our local followers, please be so kind and take the time to read it. Thank you. In recent weeks, I and other SOS-volunteers have experienced a surge of phone calls, Facebook messages and emails asking for help with stray dogs in various difficult situations. We would love to help them all, but we simply cannot and I will explain why. When we SOS-volunteers were given the keys to the pound it was under the condition that we will ourselves NOT take in any dogs under any circumstances. That right belongs exclusively to the council. They are wise enough to know that a pound easily can be turned into a “shelter”, which it is NOT – we only have 4 (!) cages, and that stray dogs from surrounding villages (that do not have a pound or are strictly following a PTS-policy, SBA being worse with a 24 hours time limit) would easily slip through the net and come under their responsibility. By asking an SOS-volunteers to bring in a dog to the pound, especially if it is not from the Oroklini-area, you ask us to jeopardize the goodwill of the council and the freedom we currently enjoy with regards to taking care of the dogs and re-homing them. The result would be hardly any dogs saved, as a 15-days PTS-rule would most likely come into effect (that equals all dogs dead, as our average re-homing rate is 2 months+). We also must make people understand that taking a dog from the streets and handing it over to the local vet or us is not really rescuing the dog. It might save it from poison, starvation or being run over, but it is not truly saved by being stuck in a cage for months at end. The reason we even have dogs in cages for months at end is that we cannot find foster homes for any big dog! That is something that needs to be brought into the equation, too. A dog will stay in a cage, unless we volunteers step in. You see, the hand-over of a dog to us is a very tiny step on a long, stressful and time-consuming rescue journey during which volunteer-time and money plays the biggest role. We are sure that other rescuers who read this post could confirm what we are saying. We have reached capacity and I am personally handling 20-25 re-homing cases on a constant basis and it has become more than a full-time unpaid job, which is not sustainable. That is one reason why we have a policy in place of only promoting dogs in the pound or dogs currently in foster care until we find another volunteer willing to do that kind of job. SOS mission was from the beginning to focus on Oroklinis Stray Dogs, as they are more than enough. We wish we could open our arms to all dogs, but we cannot due to the reasons explained above. SOS helps out at a pound, which is not a shelter. The difference is enormous in many aspects. We sincerely hope for your understanding in the matter. Trust us, our hearts are torn twice daily when we shut that pound gate and see the longing eyes of our pound dogs. What keeps us going is not looking at those we cannot save being outside Oroklini, but at those we HAVE saved spending thousands of hours and guess what? It is more than a hundred dogs in 18 months…
Posted on: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 20:32:53 +0000