Website

Our website is now up and running again after countless technical difficulties with our computers and software.  We still have a few pages to add and update, but that'll come over the next week or so.  We'll be adding the page for Anne's cats (if we can photograph them without getting scratched) and also the Links page, with links to companies and individuals who have supported us in some way, or whose websites we think might be useful to anybody involved with dogs.

We'll also be adding the page for fostering one of our dogs.  This option may suit somebody who doesn't want to commit to keeping a dog for life, but would enjoy having a dog in the short-term in order to support the dog with getting used to being in a home environment again, and helping us with assessing the dog in the home.  This will help to ensure that we find the right long-term home for that dog.

We have a lovely Rottweiler dog called Hector, 3 years old and castrated.  He is such a gentle and affectionate dog who's been no trouble at all since he's been at the Sanctuary.  He was referred to us by a Yorkshire dog rescue who said that they would pay for medical treatment for an ear infection if we would have him, otherwise he would need to be put to sleep because they didn't have the space to take him in.  His ears are now fully healed and Hector is ready to be somebody's companion.

We're also appealing for a home for Cymro & Modlan.  We urgently need to find a home for these two beautiful little dogs as their owners can no longer keep them due to a marital breakdown, and we just don't have the space to take them in at the moment...we are absolutely full to capacity until we can rehome another couple of dogs.

Rehoming News

After a quiet period on the adoption side of things, we've been lucky to have rehomed a number of dogs over the last few weeks.  Shadow the Border Collie was finally adopted after her new owner had been coming into the Sanctuary day in and day out to walk him up the lakes.  When somebody else became interested in Shadow, this was enough to spur Shadow's walkers into offering him a good home, and it was the perfect match.

We found good homes for the Collie x Northern Inuit puppies, which left space at foster carer Jackie's place for three of the Saluki x Collie puppies, which also found really good homes thanks to Jackie's efforts.  Seth & Ozzie, the tan and the black pups went to Brenda over Dolgellau and Cleo the black/white bitch to Jo near Llanwrst.  We couldn't have asked for better homes for these lively puppies. 

Jenny, the other black & white bitch puppy, stayed with the original foster carer who continued to care for her due to an injured paw, but this is almost healed now and we may part with her if we can find an equally good home.

Saffa the Rottweiler didn't stay with us for long.  He didn't need any rehabilitation as he had such a wonderful, kind temperament, so it turned out quite easy to find him a new home.

Rocky the Collie, a lively, loveable but sometimes nervous dog, was driven down to South Wales to be adopted into a wonderful home, and Khan the white German Shepherd who loved spending his walks in the brook has also been adopted.

And finally, Roxy the Rottweiler went to his new home this week in Dyserth, where she has a new friend in Chester the Rottweiler, who's showing off to her how loud he can bark and sharing his toys like a gentleman.  We wish Roxy and her new family the best of luck, and hope things work out for them.

Amber the Retriever cross went out on trial as we just weren't sure how she'd cope with a new home.  She went out to a lovely family with a large garden in the countryside in Anglesey.  Unfortunately, Amber really missed the company of other dogs and escaped from the garden, to be found asleep at the gates of a local kennels.  She obviously wanted to be around other dogs.  This is no reflection on the marvelous family who gave her the trial and who treated her really well.  This is a lesson learnt for us, and we now know that we need to find a loving and patient family who already have one or two dogs.

All in all we've been extremely fortunate in the quality of the homes being offered to our dogs over the last few weeks.  Not only is it great news that these dogs are now out of kennels and into loving homes, but it has freed the kennels up for some of the dogs who are waiting to come in for rehabilitation and/or rehoming, and of course the donations are desperately needed and will go towards paying for the food and veterinary care over the next month.  We've taken in some emergency boarding dogs at very low cost so that families in need do not need to give up, sell or have their dogs put down, which has relieved them of a great deal of stress and worry in their difficult times.

We have a couple of celebrity dogs coming in from Palestine.  They were rescued by a couple, a Welsh man and his Palestinian partner, who were caught up in the Israeli/Palestine conflict and who took in the two feral or stray dogs.  They spent thousands of pounds getting through all the red tape to get the dogs in this country, only to find that they can't find accommodation where they can keep them.  We agreed to take the dogs in as long-term boarders, but we just don't have the kennel space at the moment, so they're building us a new compound and kennel just for their dogs to live in on the Sanctuary, which shows the unwavering dedication of some people to their dogs.  It's nice to hear of cases like this when there are so many puppy farms and dog dealers around the country who care nothing about the dogs, only the money they can make, regardless of how many of these puppies and dogs end up destroyed at a young age.

And finally we'd like to thank some of our supporters, like Jackie our fantastic and reliable foster carer, Jo from 'Home from Home' dog rescue, and those who have made donations, which we are desperately in need of.  Large or small, all donations help and are spent directly on the dogs.  If every visitor to our site or our Facebook page were to donate £1 each month, this would pay for most of the month's dog food, and maybe some of the other essentials, such as extendable dog leads, wormers, medication and veterinary fees (particularly neutering).  We're considering ways of raising more funds for the dogs, but ideally we need people who could volunteer their time for fundraising efforts.  Maybe there are one or two retired animal lovers out there with some spare time on their hands.

We're even considering organising a scheme whereby individuals or organisations can sponsor a dog or kennel, and receive newsletters, etc on the dog's progress, as well as the opportunity to visit the dog and spend time with them if they wish to.

Thank you all for reading this blog and for your continued support, even if it's just sharing our links, etc on Facebook.

Dog Rehabilitation News

Denzil the American Bulldog is coming on in leaps and bounds.  He hasn't demonstrated any aggressive behaviour towards people or other dogs for a few weeks now.  We held our breaths when a suicidal Bengal cat rubbed himself up Denzil's face as he came out of the compound, but the good lad showed that he was a gentleman and just had a good sniff of the indifferent cat.  The real problem with Denzil has been calming him down when we first put a lead on him, as he gets extremely over-excited when it's time for a walk.  Anne's shrieking voice telling him to 'leave it' has the desired effect, and like a naughty child he's good as gold for the rest of the walk.  Occasionally he decides he'd like to take the lead off you and walk himself, or have a good old game of 'tug-o-war', but a gentle prompt is all that's usually needed.

He went a walk through the village for the first time today, and ignored builders, lawnmowers, sheep, a couple of barking dogs, and some passers by, although a cockerel the other side of the hedge made him jump (he probably thought it was Anne telling him off again!).  When he's fully confident with the village, then we'll take him further out of his comfort zone and take him into the town.

Belle the Doberman was rehomed, although not successfully, and was back in rehab after a couple of days.  Against our advice, she was taken straight out the same day to a busy beach, and predictably she was very difficult to control.  She is a lovely bitch but highly energetic and still behaving like a puppy.  She had an extremely traumatic time as a young puppy, being baited by terriers, so we're not in too much of a rush to make her grow up.  She has low self-confidence and feels easily threatened and intimidated when out.  She needs to build a rapport with a new owner and feel safe and secure with them before being taken to busy public places, but we're doing a lot more rehab work with her anyway to help her on her way.  She's going out everyday now to busy public places, but we're keeping her visits to 'little and often' so that the experiences are manageable for her.

Yet again some dog behaviourists are charging people for advice that we wouldn't agree with, often over the telephone.  A lot of terminology and text book solutions by somebody who doesn't know the dog are no replacement for the advice provided by experienced and competent people who work with the dogs day in and day out, 365 days a year.  Dog behaviourists, counsellors and trainers have their place in the canine world, and some of them may spend some time with the dog and give sensible advice, but we would urge anybody who has adopted a dog from Snowdonia Animal Sanctuary to make the sanctuary their first port of call if they're experiencing problems.

Most of the dogs that we've had in rehab have been seen by trainers and behaviourists, and come to us complete with their mandatory muzzles, which we immediately hang up in our muzzle collection, never to be touched again.  It's worth considering the fact that we're often the last chance for those dogs with serious emotional problems and their desperate owners, as the advice given is usually to have dogs put to sleep, or to put a muzzle on them (we do neither of these).  Most rescues, the police, RSPCA, etc will have no interest in keeping challenging dogs alive (after all, there's thousands of perfectly good dogs without issues that are destroyed each year), however, we commit ourselves to helping any dog that we're able to take on, given our limited resources and finances.

We have dogs such as J.J. and Ben the GSD's who just wanted to ravage the staff on their arrival, but who are now perfectly safe for rehoming, Shadow and Cash who had been severely neglected but are now full of themselves, and Yum Yum the Dog de Bordeaux who was like a grizzly bear on a bad day, but is now waiting to give someone as much love as they can take from him.

We've just taken in a very challenging long haired white German Shepherd dog who lunged straight out of the car at a volunteer.  He's in rehab for 3 weeks because their loving and caring owners who rescued him had tried everything else, including very good but impractical advice from a dog behaviourist, so now we're going to see what we can achieve with him in less than a month.

We have nothing against good dog behaviourists who genuinely help people and their dogs, but we've also seen people spend a lot of money with no real results, so please, please contact us first if you're experiencing problems with one of our adopted dogs.

Denzil's Rehabilitation

Denzil enjoying a little attention.

Denzil, our American Bulldog in rehab, has been out for quite a long walk today around the sanctuary.  He's had some short walks...some successful, and some not so successful, but today was definitely a success.

The routine set out by Anne since Denzil's arrival has been one of ensuring that he feels safe and secure in the sanctuary, without feeling threatened by people or other dogs.  Over a 3 month period, this has had a marked effect on him.

Anne and one of her dog handlers, Alan, walked him down to the stream and then up through the woods.  We were accompanied, as we usually are, by two or three of our resident dogs who are scared of missing something.  Despite being growled at by a senile miniature Jack Russell terrier, Denzil didn't show any sign of aggression.  In fact, he wagged his tail at the terrier and carried on walking.  He probably thought, "Just what on earth do you actually plan to do to me?", laughed at him, and walked on.  Denzil completely ignored the alpacas, which is a good sign, and when Sooty May, our resident Welsh Cob, trotted over to say hello to us (and see if we had any goodies), he once again completely ignored her.

We found that Denzil became a little jumpy when the extension lead caught on his tail, and when he got the lead caught around his legs, he got very panicky.  He looked for a short while like he might become aggressive, but reading his body language, we could see that he just wanted to free himself.  He was given enough space and loose lead to sort himself out, and then he came for some love.  He'll soon learn that the lead won't bite him.

We were more than impressed with Denzil's progress today.  He's like a different dog to the one that was growling and barking at everybody a couple of months ago.  Today was a very small step in a long process towards complete rehabilitation and eventual rehoming.  We'll get there, and Denzil must be feeling the improvement in his quality of life from successfully interacting with people and other dogs.

Click here to read more about Denzil.

Denzil, with resident dog Serin

Website

We've had a few teething problems with building the new website, but touch wood, it's all running smoothly now.  We're spending as much of our spare time as we can taking photographs of the dogs for their individual pages, and trying to get more photos of the alpacas, but they're a little protective at the moment because of their new baby boy.

He's looking very healthy and alert at the moment, so we all have our fingers crossed that he remains that way.

With this warm weather, the dogs are enjoying the stream running through the property.  The staffies in particular love to retrieve sticks thrown in the water, and because of their little legs, they have to swim across.  It's fantastic exercise for them though.  Khan the GSD tries to swim but the stream isn't quite deep enough for him, so we're going to deepen a small area so that he can swim properly.  Those that don't swim are still enjoying a paddle and a lying down in the shallower parts.

It's a great respite for us too.  In this warm weather, it's much easier for us when dogs want to exercise in the water instead of walking up the hills.