Fabienne’s heroic plight – ACE-SHIN animal rescue

Fabienne: When I bought the house, it was a municipal slaughterhouse. They killed all dogs every 10 day. I introduced a policy of no killing when I took over. Since then, we’ve saved about 35,000 dogs and 5 or 6 thousand cat. We do not get any help from the Government and we live entirely on donations. We are supported by volunteers and some of our staff. We have around 500 dogs and about 200 cats. It is a very busy shelter. We need €36,000 to €38,000 every month to run the place and sometimes more. It’s hard. Dirk, my husband, died two years ago of cancer. I have lived on my own since then. It’s been hard for me to do everything on my own. Especially as a woman. You cannot imagine the treatment you would receive as a women doing this kind of thing.

In Spain, there are about 80 volunteers. In Belgium and Holland, around 200 people are searching for the right families to adopt. Before they give the dogs to a family they do a check of the home, work with a written contract, and make sure that the cats and dogs are castrated or sterilised beforehand.

Fabienne: ‘At the moment, it is worse than ever. Since the new COVID law and the new laws came into effect, I have no idea what’s going on. Vets cannot treat an animal without a chip. If a pet owner wants help for their pet, under the new law, they have to go to a vet, but that costs a minimum of €40, and people don’t earn a lot here. They could have bought the rabies vaccination in a local store or garden centre. All that money is now available. Before it was €20, and now it is €80. Some can’t afford to do that so they just dump the dogs. You could once pay for sterilisation and we as a shelter could assist people. They say that we are taking away work from local vets. Vets in our shelter can only treat dogs and cats. People used to come to us because it costs €300, or for a Mastín €500, to sterilise the dogs, but we can’t help anymore. Also, hunting dogs pose a serious problem. The new law does not treat them as animals. The new law does not treat them as animals.

The centre has an agreement with hunters that allows them to bring dogs they do not want, and they will not abandon or kill the animals.

‘We try to help as much as we can, but at a certain moment, we are so full that there is nothing we can do. People often throw away dogs who have serious health problems like leishmania and broken legs because it is expensive.

Group walkies, scrub a dog day, adopt a dog…

They also have some positives, such as volunteers who clean and groom the dogs. There is even a group of people walking dogs so they can socialise, exercise and get outside. In addition to the unprecedented number of abandoned animals, there is another existential danger: wildfire. The council has allowed the land to become overgrown. In a few short weeks, everything will dry out and it will be a disaster.

For this reason, Tibbi Aquila has given over his restaurant, Cyrano Bar & Grill, in La Cala de Mijas for a charity lunch to raise urgent funds on Thursday, June 7, at 2pm. The proceeds The clearing of undergrowth will be paid for by a GoFundMe campaign to protect the shelter. There is also a GoFundMe campaign, OPERATION CLEANUP of the Animal Care España (ACE) Shelter. It is a critical issue, with over 700 rescue animals. The amount of animals is too large and dangerous for volunteers to handle. A professional company should be hired.

On Saturday, May 24, from 12pm, we will be holding ‘Scrub a Dog Day‘ and inviting everyone to meet the rescue dogs and help give them a bath.