We have got our canine wolves back home a couple of weeks ago. Thanks to Anne and the team at the Snowdonia Animal Sanctuary, our dogs were extremely well looked after while we went hunting for a more suitable accommodation.
Ghengis and Khan, yes, these are their names, are from Palestine. They are par-wild (wolf) and par-canine domestic dog. We are absolutely thrilled to have them back after almost 9 months. Well, to be honest, my feelings are a mixture of joy and pain. It had been a long time since we enjoyed the company of each other. Part of you just moves on, and the other part decides and devises future plans based on the hope that, one day, we can provide these lovely dogs with a good home.
I have always thought of Ghengis, now 6, as my first child. We adopted her when she was a few weeks old and have, since, treated her as one would his own child. She grow up to become a right spoilt brat!
On the other hand, Khan, who is now 5, had a very traumatic life for the first three months of his life. Before we adopted him, he was snatched away from his mother when but a couple of weeks old and placed in a barn with a number of goats. He was to be trained by his previous owner as a goat guard dog, but he was ill-treated, malnourished, and riddled with flees and ticks. At some point, we noticed that he used to scratch his right ear vigorously. When we had a closer look, we found an unimaginable number of maggots feasting on the inside of his ear. It looked like a scene from Pink Floyd's The Wall. Seriously, he had a massive bulge on the side of his head and barely any inside of ear left. His owner cared less about his state and expressed intentions of replacing the poor dog with a healthier pup. This was when we came in. We took Khani to a vet, well, erm... WE didn't... A close friend of ours did. Well, the closest vet who specialised in other than kettle and domestic fowls was in Jerusalem. We lived in Bethlehem at the time and Jerusalem is out of bound to Bethlehemites unless possessing a special permit (generally given to a portion of the Palestinian population for special occasions, like Christmas and Easter, or worshipers, and sometimes, to aid and foreign organisations workers and staff). Our friend had a foreign passport and as such was allowed to access Jerusalem.
To cut the story short, Khan was absolutely lively and healthy a number of days after the vet pulled an odd 30 maggots out of his infected ear and a dose of antibiotics. However, a number of months later, we realised that this incident had resulted in a heavy trauma to the right ear and left eye. So, our beautiful cuddly bear is partially deaf and blind.
When we left Palestine to the UK, we could not possibly leave the dogs behind. So, we went for the "Quarantine" option. Palestine is not on the Pet Scheme and although Ghengis and Khan were both tested for and injected agaist rabies, they still had to serve 6 months in quarantine in the UK. This whole process of getting the dogs into the UK cost us large sums of money, not to mention, stress and agony. We had to fill in a numebr of paperwork and make even a higher number of local and international phone calls to arrange for the dogs to travel to quarantine kennels close to where we intended to live in the UK. There was also the fact that the dogs could not travel directly from Palestine as the Israeli Authorities have full control over land borders and air. We had to arrange for an agency to collect the dogs from a point past the "borders"in Jerusalem and to deliver them in carrier kennels to Tel-Aviv airport and for another to collect them from Manchester and deliver them to the Chester Quarantine Kennels.
After the quarantine phase, Ghengis and Khan joined us in our humble, but beautiful accommodation, next to a public foot path leading to mini-woods, waterfalls and reservoirs. They stayed with us for about 16 months before we realised that what we could afford to provide the dogs with at the time was not sufficient. So, this time, we went for the option of providing them with temporary accommodation at the fantastically loving Snowdonia Animal Sanctuary in Capel Curig, until we can find a farm or a more suitable accommodation, or a suitable home that would adopt the two dogs together.
Nevertheless, the family is now reunited and happy!
Thank you Anne, we owe you one.
Please support the Sanctuary through spreading the word about their great work, achievements and unconditional love to animals.
You can visit them on their official page; http://www.snowdoniaanimalsanctuary.com/, or read their latest news on the sanctuary blog; http://snowdoniaanimalsanctuary.blogspot.co.uk/
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| Ghengis |
I have always thought of Ghengis, now 6, as my first child. We adopted her when she was a few weeks old and have, since, treated her as one would his own child. She grow up to become a right spoilt brat!
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| Khan |
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| Khan enjoying the breeze! |
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| Pampered doggy |
When we left Palestine to the UK, we could not possibly leave the dogs behind. So, we went for the "Quarantine" option. Palestine is not on the Pet Scheme and although Ghengis and Khan were both tested for and injected agaist rabies, they still had to serve 6 months in quarantine in the UK. This whole process of getting the dogs into the UK cost us large sums of money, not to mention, stress and agony. We had to fill in a numebr of paperwork and make even a higher number of local and international phone calls to arrange for the dogs to travel to quarantine kennels close to where we intended to live in the UK. There was also the fact that the dogs could not travel directly from Palestine as the Israeli Authorities have full control over land borders and air. We had to arrange for an agency to collect the dogs from a point past the "borders"in Jerusalem and to deliver them in carrier kennels to Tel-Aviv airport and for another to collect them from Manchester and deliver them to the Chester Quarantine Kennels.
After the quarantine phase, Ghengis and Khan joined us in our humble, but beautiful accommodation, next to a public foot path leading to mini-woods, waterfalls and reservoirs. They stayed with us for about 16 months before we realised that what we could afford to provide the dogs with at the time was not sufficient. So, this time, we went for the option of providing them with temporary accommodation at the fantastically loving Snowdonia Animal Sanctuary in Capel Curig, until we can find a farm or a more suitable accommodation, or a suitable home that would adopt the two dogs together.
Nevertheless, the family is now reunited and happy!
Thank you Anne, we owe you one.
Please support the Sanctuary through spreading the word about their great work, achievements and unconditional love to animals.
You can visit them on their official page; http://www.snowdoniaanimalsanctuary.com/, or read their latest news on the sanctuary blog; http://snowdoniaanimalsanctuary.blogspot.co.uk/
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