Holiday Plans

At this time of year your thoughts may turn to holidays. You may currently be scouring brochures and websites for your ideal holiday destination, ensuring that it offers everything that you want from a holiday.

But when making your holiday plans, do you ever consider what help you could offer the area that you are visiting?

At Dog Welfare Network we have collected information about dog rescue organisations across Europe, highlighting the areas in which they would appreciate your help. You may only be in an area for a couple of weeks, but during that time a visit to a local dog rescue centre, taking with you some dog food or bedding, or offering to walk the dogs, can make a big difference.

To find dog rescue organisations in your chosen destination, just visit www.dogwelfarenetwork.co.uk and select your chosen country. We’ve included centres across the UK and Europe that need your valuable support and hope that you will take the time to pay them a visit during your holiday.

We would value your feedback via replies@dogwelfarenetwork.co.uk regarding any shelters that you may visit, so that we can ensure all our information is kept up-to-date.

Thank you for your support!

Become A Volunteer

With so many stray and abandoned dogs and so many dog rescue centres needing help, organisations are always on the lookout for volunteers.

Many of you reading this will be dog lovers you would love to help, but for whatever reason are unable to adopt or foster dogs that need homes. But don’t worry – you can still do your bit! Contact a dog rescue centre near you (or help out at one overseas whilst on holiday) to see how you can help.

Here are some suggestions of things that you may like to do:

Take some dog food or treats to the rescue centre to help them cope with the constant strain feeding the dogs housed there. It's a good idea to check with the dog rescue organisation first about what type of food they will find most helpful.

Donate other useful items such as dog toys and bedding.

Offer your skills to a local rescue organisation - anything from building to gardening to helping to organise a campaign or fundraising effort.

Visit a shelter and volunteer to walk a dog. This is a simple activity that you can perform even whilst on holiday and it involves the whole family.

Make a donation to the local neutering campaign, or sponsor a dog that you find on the streets to be neutered. A single female dog can produce up to 120 puppies in her lifetime - more for a male - the only lasting way to tackle this problem is to prevent further puppies being born on the streets.

Please visit our website for more suggestions: www.dogwelfarenetwork.co.uk

We would value your feedback via replies@dogwelfarenetwork.co.uk regarding any shelters that you may visit.

Helping The Stray Dogs of Spain

You may currently be preparing to go on holiday in Spain or one of the nearby islands. As you check out the things to do and the places to visit at your chosen destination, take time to see if there are any dog rescue centres that would appreciate your help while you’re there.

At the Dog Welfare Network, we have information about many dog rescue shelters across Europe including those in Spain.

If you’re travelling to Andalusia, perhaps you could offer some assistance to the people of A.I.D. who look after and try to rehome the stray and abandoned dogs in this area of Malaga. For more information see dogwelfarenetwork.co.uk/spain-aid

Meanwhile in Cadiz, the folk at Happy Ending Final Feliz would appreciate help with walking the dogs that they care for and would appreciate donations of food and bedding. Read more at dogwelfarenetwork.co.uk/spain-happy_ending

S.A.T. on the Costa Blanca would also value your help with practical support and donations. You can see their details at  dogwelfarenetwork.co.uk/spain-sat

At the Dog Welfare Network website you can also read about organisations on the islands of Fuerteventura  Lanzarote and Majorca and what you can do to offer them your help.

Visit www.dogwelfarenetwork.co.uk for more information. We value your feedback on any shelters that you visit, so please contact us via replies@dogwelfarenetwork.co.uk

Thank you for your support.

Introducing Marmaris Dog Shelter

The Marmaris Dog Shelter in Turkey was built in 2005 and was originally designed to house 150 dogs. Today it has over 250 dogs in its care, with new arrivals constantly being admitted.

The shelter is run by a group of volunteers across several nationalities, all working to improve the lives of the animals in Marmaris. Their aims and ongoing objectives include:

  Caring for sick animals, administering medication and taking them to private vets when necessary, which is paid for by fundraising schemes.

  Supplementing the inadequate food allowance with supplies provided by fundraising. Volunteers visit the Shelter for three hours each day to ensure equal distribution of food, and provision of supplementary feeding for weak or nursing dogs.

  Creating separate areas for weak dogs, mothers with puppies, orphaned puppies and sick animals. Volunteers are building more covered areas and kennels to provide extra shelter as well as maintaining and repairing broken doors, fences, bolts etc

  Finding suitable, temporary foster homes for recovering animals and orphaned puppies.

  Finding permanent adoptive homes both in Turkey and other countries, with a follow-up system for dogs leaving the shelter.

To achieve all of this it is necessary for the volunteers of Marmaris to constantly hold fundraising events, ranging from raffles, sponsored events and table-top sales to encouraging ongoing donations to the scheme.

Volunteers often provide essentials out of their own pockets and desperately need your help to improve the lives of the stray and abandoned dogs of Turkey, where the government policy is to trap, neuter and then release dogs (TNR).

Perhaps you will be traveling to Turkey this year for your annual holiday or for business purposes. Marmaris is a popular tourist destination, with many clubs and bars, aquaparks and local entertainment and is renowned for its sailing centre. Add to this the friendliness of the locals and you have the makings of a great holiday. But please, whilst enjoying all that Marmaris has to offer, spare a thought for the dogs and volunteers of the Marmaris Dog Shelter and help them in any way that you can.

You can find the shelter at:

Marmaris Hayvan Rehabilitasyon Merkezi

Otogar Yani

Marmaris – 48700

Or find out more at:

info@marmarisanimalwelfare.com

www.marmarisanimalwelfare.com

www.facebook.com/marmarisanimalwelfare

Follow on Twitter @MarmarisAnimals

You can read more about how to help the many dog rescue shelters across Europe by visiting www.dogwelfarenetwork.co.uk

You can also contact us via  replies@dogwelfarenetwork.co.uk

Why We Started Dog Welfare Network

Our personal experience of witnessing the huge stray dog problem whilst on holiday in areas such as the Greek Islands made us stop and think.

Wandering around holiday destinations sightseeing, we became aware of the number of dogs abandoned on the streets, and decided to seek out dog rescue shelters. On the plus side, we did indeed find them, on the down side many proved to be under-resourced, run by caring volunteers in need of funding and support.

In some areas, although we found shelters not too far apart from one another, they were unaware of each other’s existence, which meant that they were unable to share useful resources, such as transport for dogs offered adoption.

This is why we started The Dog Welfare Network – to inform holidaymakers where they can find dog rescue organisations to support and to make shelters aware of one another so that they can share resources where appropriate.

What we do not intend tourists to do is round up the local dogs they see and take them to the nearest shelter! This is unhelpful and counterproductive.

Instead, we suggest that you visit the shelters, taking gifts of food, bedding and other equipment if you can. Offer your services for dog walking or fund-raising, or leave a monetary donation if you are able. This then assists in caring for the dogs in the shelter and finding them adoptive homes, thus freeing up places to accommodate further strays.

Many centres offer neutering programmes, to reduce the number of future strays, and contributions towards these programmes are very welcome.

The Dog Welfare Network has created a website on which we will be adding details of dog rescue centres around Europe that would value your support. When planning your next holiday, be sure to see what shelters are near your chosen destination, so that you can help too.

Visit our website www.dogwelfarenetwork.co.uk and click on the country in question. If you visit any of the shelters listed, we would value your feedback via replies@dogwelfarenetwork.co.uk

Thank you for your support.

How You Can Help

At the Dog Welfare Network, we are aware that there is a huge number of stray, unwanted, uncared for dogs across the world. Although we are based in the UK, we have seen at first hand the plight of these dogs across Europe and witnessed dog shelters struggling to raise funds and meet the demand for safe places for these abandoned animals.

That’s why we’ve launched our website giving information about many of the dog shelters that exist across the UK and the rest of Europe. Our aim is to raise awareness of dog rescue organisations, so that they may come together and pool their resources whilst enabling members of the general public to help in any way that they can.

It can be heartbreaking when travelling to different countries on holiday or for business, to be met by sights of bedraggled unwanted pets. You may often wonder how you can help them, but leave without doing anything, as you’re not sure what to do.

For future trips, just visit our website www.dogwelfarenetwork.co.uk and click on the country in question. This will enable you to find out what local dog rescue centres there are and what you can do to help them. If you visit any of the shelters listed, we would value your feedback via replies@dogwelfarenetwork.co.uk so that we can add up-to-date information and ensure that shelters that are exhibiting bad practice are not being featured on our website.

Thank you for your support.

A Warm Hello From Dog Welfare Network

Allow us to introduce ourselves. We are a new dog welfare information service and contact point that has been set up by a UK animal rescue organisation based in Kent. We aim to provide contact details and information for dog rescue centres across Europe, allowing dog lovers everywhere to improve the lives of abandoned dogs and assist the rescue centres with vital resources.

You may often have noticed bedraggled, stray dogs whilst visiting other countries on holiday or for business trips. This may have made you stop and think about what you could do to help, but you may have had trouble accessing the information that you need.

That’s where our new website comes in. Over the coming months we will be adding the contact details of a number of rescue centres across Europe, together with suggestions of how you can assist them and keeping you informed of our progress.

If you’re interested to learn more about how you can help these poor animals, visit:

www.dogwelfarenetwork.co.uk today. 

You can also email as at: enquiries@dogwelfarenetwork.co.uk