AUGUST 2011...  After taking over the reins in San Fulgencio Town Hall Mayor of San Fulgencio Carlos Ramirez and councillor for the urbanisations Jeff Wiszniewski gave assurances to animal welfare volunteers and other local residents that stray dogs and cats were not being sent to the Cereco pound in Crevillente. However, it is now clear that the Town Hall has been using Cereco to collect them and take them away. To read what Jeff Wiszniewski said to one local resident that visited him in his office to ask him about the councils procedure for dealing with stray animals, visit our Council News page. Another local resident has written to the Spanish and English newspapers about this and you can read the story on-line here 

Previous San Fulgencio councillor for animal welfare Mark Lewis campaigned for years to cancel the contract that this Town Hall had with the Cereco pound in Crevillente. After being elected in 2007 he was able to stop the animals from being taken to the Cereco pound.  He introduced a protocol that saw the introduction of a dedicated Animal Rescue Vehicle, and, working with animal welfare volunteers, more than 1000 animals have been rescued and re-homed during his tenure as councillor. The new council, headed by Mayor Carlos Ramirez, overturned everything that the previous council did to ensure proper care and welfare of the animals, now, nobody knows what is happeneing to them once they are collected and taken away by the Cereco vans. 

Cereco is a pound in Crevillente that has a contract with 40 different Town Halls to collect stray and abandoned animals. WHEN ANIMALS ARRIVE AT THIS POUND THEY ARE BUNDLED INTO CAGES WITH MANY OTHERS. If you would like to know what people are saying about Cereco do a Google search for: Cereco Crevillente.

Leishmania was discovered in 1900 by Scottish bacteriologist, Sir William Boog Leishman, while serving as a colonel with the British Army in India. This disease is classed as a tropical disease. Cats cannot contract it.

Over the years the disease has spread to other countries, sometimes under other names, the Sandfly disease being the most common. This name is misleading because the disease has nothing to do with sand or flies.  I never let my dog go on the beach because of the sandflies is an often heard remark. The beach has nothing to do with it. Your dog is equally at risk in town, country, woodland or wherever. Mediterranean disease is another name, even though it is found as far north as Lyon in France.

Leishmania is an immuno suppressive disease, which means that it breaks down the natural ability of the body to fight off diseases.  In this way it is vaguely similar to AIDS in humans.  There are two types of Leishmania: Cutaneous and Visceral.  Cutaneous affects the skin and Visceral attacks the internal organs. The best person to advise you about which kind your dog has is your vet. Each case is different, and so is the form the treatment will take.

Newcomers to Spain are surprised when they learn about Leishmania. They have rarely heard about it (if at all) in their own country. Visitors from Northern Europe who bring their dog with them for a holiday often comment that they wish they had not - and rightly so if, in their ignorance of the disease, they subjected their dogs to the possibility of contracting it.

Any dog can catch Leishmania but there is evidence to indicate that shorthaired dogs are more susceptible as obviously the offending mosquito can more easily penetrate the skin. Bear in mind two very important facts: there is no cure and there is no vaccination against the disease. However there are treatments which can afford an affected dog long periods of remission, often reminiscent of a cure. A dog with Leishmania in a mild degree can live to a very ripe old age.

What are the symptoms?  Watch out for prolonged nail growth, ulceration of the ear tips, thick dandruff, bald patches on the skin, sunglasses effect around the eyes, getting thin although eating well (in this latter case, check firstly for worms), whiteness of the cornea of the eyes. These are all warning signs that your dog could have Leishmania.  The only way to make absolutely sure is to visit your vet who will analyse a blood sample and you will have the results within a day or so. It is indeed a relief when the results prove negative. We all want to care for our dogs to the best of our ability and care means preventing your dog from getting this ultimately fatal disease and it can certainly be prevented.

You can do a lot to ensure that your dog does not get Leishmania.The disease is carried by a certain type of mosquito, so small that it is virtually invisible to the human eye.  The creature flies at dusk and at night whenever the temperature is over 20 degrees Celsius. In the south of Spain, especially, this can occur in the middle of winter. There is a belief that the mosquitoes are very low flying and therefore dogs in a high building are safer. This is true only to a very limited degree. A strong wind can carry mosquitoes to great heights.

To maximise protection for your dog you should never let him sleep out at night. Of course, it would like to sleep out on your terrace or balcony on those hot summer nights, but you are its guardian and you make any decisions in its best interests. Your dog should be indoors as soon as darkness falls and temperatures are 20 degrees Celsius or higher. The room in which it sleeps should also be protected. Open windows, if a necessity during summer nights should be covered with mosquito netting, which you can buy cheaply at any hardware store.  If stretched on a wooden frame it does not obscure your views and has the added bonus that it also keeps wasps and other nasty insects out.

There is a very special insect repellent collar called Scalibor that is highly recommended by all vets, which will protect your dog from bites from this mosquito and also from fleas and ticks and, unlike the tick and flea collar, lasts for 6 months as opposed to 3 months.  There is also a lotion called X Spot which comes in ampulets and as an alternative to the Scalibur collar should be applied to the back of the neck and rump of your dog. This will take either one or two ampulets, depending on the size of your dog. An extra protection is to use those small mosquito gadgets sold in many shops that use tables or liquid and plug into electricity points.  This all sounds very extreme but, with something as serious as this, it is necessary to take extreme measures.

There are also those of us who have so many dogs that it would be impossible for them all to be indoors after dusk but X Spot and Scalibor collars will protect your dogs from bites if they live outside in the open.

For other important information about dogs diseases in  Spain visit these web sites:

Dogs:

www.leishmaniasis.info

Which are classified as potentially dangerous dogs in Spain:

http://www.mapausa.org/eng/nc_3.htm

Cats:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feline_leukemia_virus

ANIMAL Transport - to AND FROM the UK...

Recommended by the Pets In Spain team: Roy Line: 966795842 - 659420862

email: eltatts@hotmail.co.uk

Why you should never buy an animal from a pet shop in Spain....

 

I would like to inform everybody of the experience I received from buying 2 kittens and 1 puppy from the pet shop (Hobby Zoo) at the Carrefour Shopping Centre in Finestrat (Benidorm).

 

I purchased 2 kittens one boy and one girl, they there both 8 weeks old and cost 500€ each, there breed was English Blue, about 6 weeks later the girl became quite ill, I took her to our family vet in Alfaz Del Pi, and she had various tests and I was told to bring the other kitten in for tests as she had a condition called PIF which was contagious only with cats.  Fortunately the boy cat got the all clear.  The little girl was weak and did not respond to any treatment, a week before Christmas I was told she had about 48 hours to live and she passed away peacefully on the Monday before Christmas.  The vet did say it was not the PIF that she died from but she was a weak and poorly kitten. Followed by a 650€ vets bill.  I did not go back to the pet shop as at the time I thought it was one of those things, they happen.

 

I then purchased a puppy, she was also 8 weeks old and was a King Charles Spaniel, then in the January she developed a cough, one of those irritating ones, it did not bother her but after a week I took her to the family vet and he did an x ray and said she had a little fluid on one side of her lung and she had some antibiotics and had to keep going back every 5 days for a check up.  She was not responding to any treatment so I felt she needed to go to the Vet Hospital in Alfaz for a second opinion, after many tests and tablets and going back and forth she slowly deteriorated, she stayed in the hospital for over a week and was allowed to come home but the vet said it was a very “grave” situation, she had 2 days with me and then totally unexpected she died in my arms.  This absolutely destroyed me with grief, this time I had 2 vets bills that came to over a 1000€!

 

After I had the ashes back and sat down to try to understand why this had happened twice in just over a year I decided to visit the pet shop, as always when you buy something they can speak English but when you have a problem they don’t understand so I took a translator as although I can speak Spanish to a moderate level I wanted to be sure on exactly what was being said.

 

In a nut shell I was told pets only get a 15 day guarantee! You get more on a washing machine!! And I should have had an autopsy on both animals, little late after they had been cremated.  So I decided to obtain as much information that I could from both the family vet and the pet hospital and complete a “Hoja de Reclamación” as during this information collecting it was highlighted to me that all 3 animals had been born in Slovakia and imported into Spain.

 

Two weeks later I received a letter from the pet shop stating that this had never happened before and they are not at fault, and it could possibly be my fault with about 5 reasons, for example; maybe bathing the animals and taking them out in the cold and such like.  I WOULD LIKE TO ADD THAT THIS WAS NOT THE CASE.

 

What I am trying to get across is; if you totally forget the total expense I have paid, the more important issue is the importing of puppies and kittens from countries like Slovakia etc.  They are transported in bad conditions and some are even dead when they arrive I have been informed. So as English animal lovers we need to stop buying animals from these types of pet shops and try to put a stop on these poor animals being brought into Spain!

 

There are so many Animal Rescue Centers here in Spain who are full to capacity and all these animals need loving homes. I have discovered that they provide all the treatment necessary to ensure that the dogs and cats are in good health before they are adopted. So think twice before buying a family pet from a pet shop. I have recently adopted a small dog from the K9 Club Animal Welfare Charity and she is perfect.

 

Paul Christopher Ashwell

Benidorm

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