Galgo News

Stop Greyhound Racing in the Philippines, South Africa & St Kitts!

**URGENT ACTION ALERT—PLEASE FORWARD AND CROSSPOST TO ALL LISTS **

International Threats to Greyhounds, Letters Needed!

Dear Friends:

We have just learned that efforts to open dog tracks in the South Pacific and in the Caribbean are underway.

Please send your letters of concern to officials on behalf of the greyhounds. Thousands of dogs will be doomed to injury and death if racetracks are legalized in these new jurisdictions.

The Philippines

In the Philippines, House Bill No. 5291—An Act Granting the Fox Millenium Amusement Club a Franchise to Construct, Operate and Maintain a Greyhound Racetrack—would make dog racing legal in the city of Mandaue. This dangerous measure has already been approved by a legislative conference committee.

Please send a letter of support for the greyhounds to:

Sign the Petition - Stop the change in law in Belgium in October

This is the link to the Greyhounds in Nood website which is also running a petition to try and stop this law coming into effect. Click on the Union Jack if you want to read what they say in English.

http://www.ginb.be/petition/indexen.php

This is the other petition

Transportation of Live Dogs from Spain - Solving the Problem

Cobie Steketee is the amazing Dutch lady who runs one of the shelters in Cordoba from which we brought several galgos to rehome in France. She has written an article about the problems many shelters face with regard to transporting dogs around Spain and elsewhere.

The transportation of live dogs from Spain to France, Belgium, Holland and Germany.

It has been almost two and a half years now that I have worked as a volunteer in numerus Spanish shelters/dogs homes. According to my connections through this period of time, it has become obvious that many of the shelters and adoption charities seem to run into the same problem time and time again… that being, the transportation of the dogs to other European Countries outside of Spain itself.

A lot of the Spanish dogs can easily be rehomed in other countries, but the biggest problem is, how to get them there with reasonable expense coverage. It is due to this problem that many dogs still remain in the Spanish shelters for a long period of time and these shelters quickly become overfull.

Click on the link to read the full article.

www.baasgalgo.com

URGENT - Sign the Petition - Stop the change of law in Belgium in October

In October, due to a change in Belgian law, no organization can import dogs from abroad. This means that organizations dedicated to Spanish Galgos and Greyhounds have to cease their activities. Hundreds of these dogs travel to Belgium every year to be adopted, to find families and a life full of love and affection.

Let's all try to fight this law, to stop it applying to galgos and greyhounds, as without our help they will have no chance of being adopted.

Please sign the petition.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/tegen-hondenracisme-en-discriminatie

From Sandra Baas of Baas Galgo

Join Today to support a charter to protect galgos and podencos.

New website to check out for galgos and podencos www.galgos-ethique-europe.eu

President of Levriers en Danger is behind it, hoping to gather together associations and refuges who wish to join and support a charter for the protection of galgos and podencos, which is vital for their protection and recognition.

Please sign the charter via the links below.

For individuals www.galgos-ethique-europe.eu

For associations and refuges www.galgos-ethique-europe.eu/spip

Granada - behind the scenes in a cultural(?) province

Susanna has sent me some more information about the problems for the volunteers of the Province of Granada trying to deal with the massive abandonment of dogs from that reagion, and in particular highlighting the Podenco Andaluz.

This is what she writes.

'I think it is a problem of culture. The Podencos are not known by the majority of Spanish persons. The people use them only as a hunting dog. In the reality the Podenco Andaluz is a guardian and a fantastic pet too!

I want to tell you that the Protectora de Granada San Francisco de Asis is the most important in Granada becasue they have poor abandoned dogs from everywhere in the Provincia of Granada. However,they have a bad period because they do not have many volunteers,and they are really volounteers (they don' earn money). They have not time to put much information on the web site.

Who are your MEPs? How do they vote?

Zdenka has sent me this link, which details all the MEPs and how they vote on different issues. It should be a very useful tool to those of you who want to lobby for a law to protect galgos and podencos especially, but also all animal issues.

http://www.votewatch.eu/cx_detalii_act.php?id_act=6053&lang=en

If anyone decides to organise a campaign as a result of studying this website, please send me details so that we can try and co-ordinate a concerted effort together to make an especially LOUD voice! I will put on my thinking cap but, at the moment, a lot of my time is taken up with writing to earn some income!

URGENT - HAVE YOU WRITTEN TO YOUR MEP - DETAILS HERE!

Trudy from GreytExploitations asks 'Have you asked your MEP's to sign the Written Declaration on Stray and Pet Animals? Details can be seen below - it would be great if you could ask your MEP to sign - European animals need all the help they can get!
I didn't write a letter to my MEP's I just asked them to sign it and they did................

An example text (e mail) is also provided below. Please copy it, or change to personalise it.

Urgent - Sign This Petition Now - before 3rd May 2009

Barbara Kowollik raised a petition against killing of strays within the European Union

The growing numbers of abandoned and free-roaming pets (especially dogs and cats) have become a problem in some European states. More and more we are confronted with horrific news about and pictures of animals that have been poisoned or otherwise killed and animals who have been subjected to terrible abuse.

Seville Sightseeing - the scandal behind the tourist sites!

Write to your MEP and demand he/she votes on 7th May. Stop this cruelty!

I make no apologies for the fact that this story is not about galgos or podencos. But it is about the stray dogs of Spain, and a municipal dog compound (pererra) - this particular one is in Seville but it could just as easily be in Cordoba, Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia. It's where dogs, mainly, are taken to be put down. The usual method of euthenasia, the cheapest of course at 35 euros per dog, paralyses the dog and it suffers for 20 whole long minutes before its life ends.