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Last update on 28.04.2004
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ANIMA MADEIRA
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- (more than just a name in Southern Europe)
- Within the South European Animal Welfare the German Organisation ANIMA Hilfe für Tiere e.V. is known as Anima Madeira. It made no sense to found “Anima Madeira” under the very complicated Portuguese law, as all the welfare work (placement etc.) is done in Germany.
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- A very special love and attention goes to the cats and dogs of Madeira and its neighbouring island Porto Santo. The dogs are mainly small, even those being regarded as bigger ones, would in Germany be defined as small ones. They are used to live in packs/prides and are very socially characters.
- Cats and dogs from Madeira are never as frightened as we do know from those coming from other South European countries. Even if they experienced not much good in their lives, they are thoroughly devoted to humans. The dogs being grateful and humble, the cats very cuddly. They are intelligent and sensitive, it is easy to chase them away, all it needs to do is to raise one hand as the animals expect this hand to hold a stick or a stone to harm them and, on Madeira, within a second the animal is gone. The animal ends up on the street, joining its many fellow sufferers of domesticated and abandoned pets, increasing their number and making their misery even the more visible for us.
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- Despite the enormous costs, ANIMA Hilfe für Tiere e. V. organises together with German and Portuguese veterinarians annually castrations for cats and she-dogs. And despite the various restrictions, for example such of various airlines allowing the transport of only 1 animal per passenger and charging 40,00 Euro for that, we do try to find a new home in Germany for the small and healthy dog from Madeira or Porto Santo. We have often been asked why a German animal welfare organisation does not exclusively take care for the increasing number of “national” animals waiting for new homes in the various petshelters in Germany.
- Answer:
- The main problem of the German animal welfare is the breeding animals, where so-called “breeders” sell their puppets to almost every person willing to pay the purchase price. Most of the time it ‘s animals growing bigger that are being passed to the animal welfare organisations for various reasons. In Germany, people – i.e. families – do search for smaller, endearing and compatible dogs, which can also be kept in flats rather than in houses with gardens. If the pet shelters do not take on dogs from Southern Europe they will not be able to satisfy the requests.
- Often it is assumed that animals, being brought over to Germany, are usually ill.
- Answer:
- There are dog diseases that only exist in Southern Europe but not in Middle Europe. Those diseases are being transferred by what is called an intermediate host, which does not exist in Middle Europe. Anyone being involved in animal welfare specifically such of Southern European animals should know about those specific diseases and be able to identify and heal them and to give sufficient information on them when animal placement is taking place.
- It is, however, very astonishing that Germans do travel to South European countries for vacation together with their dogs and never ask themselved whether their dogs were probably bit by a sandfly or a mosquito and therefore might have caught some disease there.
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Little Dinah from the dogs reception camp of Porto Santo, haggard and apathetic on her arrival in Eschborn/Ts, Germany |
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Dinah some weeks later, a healthy and self-confident little she-dog
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