April 2013 - Canilos Animal Foundation

Newsletter April 2013
In memoriam
The directors of Canilos have taken note with great sadness of the death of our Secretary Annet
Habets, on 26 March 2013.
Annet was one of the founders of Canilos. As a Board member of the first hour she was deployed with
heart and soul for the welfare of animals in General and specifically the fate of the barrel dogs on
Lesvos.
Annet was a passionate Secretary, focused on the goal of our Organization but also she shared her
amazing, versatile experience with our Board in order to ensure the proper tradeoffs and the correct
decision making.
In addition, Annet was a warm and committed personality with direct attention to everyone around
her.
Canilos should be missing a great board member and the barrel dogs on Lesvos a champion for the
cause.
Friends of Canilos
Here’s our second newsletter. These are the topics:
Our website in Greek
Sequel to our project of localizing, mapping and registering the barrel dogs.
Update on the education project.
Board meeting at the train station.
Sequel of Paula’s attic sale
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Our website now in Greek!
A big thank you to the ones responsible for translating the website.
Sequel of localizing, mapping and registering the barrel dogs.
Stavros (our forest ranger on location) has mapped, photographed and registered the barrel dogs on Lesvos.
Where possible he has approached the owners and explained them that what they are doing is prohibited
according to the law. Where the dog’s owner wasn’t found, he left a letter for the owner to read near the dog.
Stavros found many improvements and at a number of locations, the dog was actually removed. Sometimes
replaced by an alternative monitoring object. About 300 dogs in total were registered. Underneath the photos
you will find the Press Release from Lesvos with the results of this project so far. We are very happy with these
results. It is a very good beginning of a probably long-term trajectory.
Photo of a scarecrow, there used to be 2 dogs, one on each side
of the road.
On the left side of the photo you see a rocking horse instead
of a dog.
Plastic wraps to scare off the sheep.
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Press release
Yesterday, March 11, 2013, expired the deadline set by the Municipality of Lesvos on the dogs’ owners to
comply with the provisions of Law 4039/2012 “…On Animal Welfare…’. From our side, we are about to finish
the re-checking of barrel dogs’ cases we have identified in the previous weeks. So far we have re-checked 92
cases, and we have spotted 9 new ones. Of the cases rechecked, in 38% the dogs are no longer chained in the
middle of nowhere- and in many instances their owners have replaced them with scarecrows and other objects
for deterring the movement of the herds. In 24% of the cases the dogs’ living conditions have been improved
(i.e. the dogs have a better shelter, longer chain, clean water and food and so on). Unfortunately, for the
remaining 38% of the cases no improvement has been monitored.
We would like to publicly thank the 60% of the owners who listened to the call of reason and humanity and
improved the living conditions of their animals. In the coming weeks we will undertake new and tailored
initiatives for helping these owners to further improve the lives of their dogs and to comply fully with the
requirements of the Law.
We regret that almost 40% of the owners have paid no attention to our plea, and continues the practice
which affronts Lesvos and our culture. All these cases will be referred to the Greek authorities within the next
few days. The ball is now with the Greek Police and judicial system.
We will not stop struggling to make Lesvos the first barrel dog free Greek island. We will continue assisting
those owners who wish to improve the living conditions of their dogs. We will continue reporting those owners
who do not change their illegal practices. We will continue pressing the Greek authorities to enforce the Law.
And we need your help for doing all these. Please visit our website (www.canilos.org) and check how you may
assist us.
Thank you!
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Update on the education project
Canilos sponsored the projector and the screen, thanks to the contributions of our donors, so that the
volunteers did not have to hire the equipment.
The following e-mail we got from Zina, one of the volunteers on
Lesvos.
“I inform you that our program in schools is proceeding very
well. We have visited 35 schools till now and we hope to cover
all of them before summer. Children are very pleased with the
project, they take part in conversations and seem to be very
fond of the animals. The images and the video are very
interesting for them. The teachers are very pleased also. At the
end of presentation we give to each child the prospectus which
SAPT HELLAS has sent to us, with rules about the behavior to the
dogs. We also give to the teachers exercises to work with, as
well as the education magazine <Τα ζωα μας και εμεις> which
GAWF have sent.
We have printed wallpaper about adopting stray dogs and cats
and we give one in each school.
We thank you again for your donation and hope to see you on
summer.”
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Board meeting at the train station.
We always meet in a café / restaurant
in Den Bosch. Because we want to
start early Christel call’s the café in
advance to ask if they can open half
an hour early. There are times that
Christel forgets or that something
goes wrong with the communication
and the cafe is closed. We don’t want
to waste any minute, so we're just
starting our meeting on a bench
inside the train station.
Sequel of Paula’s attic sale.
It all started with cleaning and selling stuff from my own attic,
two mornings a week, together with the enthusiastic
Canilosvolunteer Nelly. It immediately became a success, but
now it appears even to be a real hit. Now, it has turned into 4
mornings in the shop with a separate afternoon for handing
over stuff. And it is no longer my own stuff, but that of many
sweet people who think Canilos and its goal is worth it to bring
over things they are not using anymore. It's a win-win
situation! Three parties are very happy:
Party 1: Is happy that they can get rid of their old stuff, and in the meantime contribute something for the
animals.
Party 2: That’s us, we can sell the stuff for money intended for
projects for Canilos.
Party 3: The people who buy stuff at a bargain price and go out
the door happy.
The greatest compliment we got was from a lady who told us:
"There is a 4th party who is happy, and that is all these people
who come in for fun, contacts and a chat. There is laughter and
stories. So you also have a social function!" That was a great
compliment for Nelly and me and it made our day.
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