Torrevieja (Alicante) resident ensures that rescue cat goes to a good home

Torrevieja (Alicante) resident ensures that Simba goes to a good home

SUE’S FOSTER: Soon to go to his forever home, where he will be known as Simba Photo credit: Sue Pearce

SUE PEARCE answered a social media SOS from Torrevieja’s municipal animal shelter a couple of months ago.

They were inundated with kittens and needed fosterers, Sue explained to the Euro Weekly News.  Without thinking twice she offered to help.

“I didn’t go to the shelter,” she told us.  “They brought the kitten literally off the street where he’d been abandoned, six weeks old and screaming his head off, full of fleas and ear mites.”

Sue took the now-thriving kitten to the vet for his injections at nine weeks – financed by the town hall’s Animal Protection department – and the volunteers suggested that he would have a better chance of adoption at the shelter.

Off went Sue, her husband and daughter to deliver the kitten. 

“I only saw where the kittens were kept,” Sue said.  “There must have been 11, all wanting love and attention.”

What was worse was the shelter itself.  “My garden shed is better,” she told us.

With a heavy heart, they left the kitten just as the shelter was closing.  Afterwards, they stood outside looking at each other, numb at the thought of leaving him and already aware they were going back for him when the shelter reopened that afternoon.

The kitten is now 14 weeks old and Sue has found a home for him.

“The town hall pays for the animals’ inoculations and has provided premises,” Pat explained. 

“But from what I can see the shelter survives on donations for everything else,” she added. “There is a Spanish person who seems to be charge, and someone else who answers the phone and attends to the administrative side.”

Apart from that, everything is up to the volunteers who look after 74 cats and kittens. 

“There are dogs too, but what their quarters are like, I can’t imagine, Sue said.

She hastened to assure us that despite the ramshackle premises, the volunteers were marvellous. But too often they lack the barest necessities like cat litter, towels and rubber gloves, let alone food. 

“I suspect they dip into their own pockets,” Sue said. “They need all the help they can get.”

The Euro Weekly News now hopes to talk to the town hall’s Animal Protection councillor, so watch this space to see what happens next, and if more can be done for the shelter.

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Written by

Linda Hall

Originally from the UK, Linda is based in Valenca and is a reporter for The Euro Weekly News covering local news. Got a news story you want to share? Then get in touch at editorial@euroweeklynews.com.

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