As we move towards the end of Lockdown in our area, the Executive Committee would like to update you on what has been happening within PAWS-PATAS.

On Saturday, 14^th March, Vanessa Maipauw, James Scamans and Alastair Smith moved on site and the main section of the shelter went into “Lockdown”.  These three volunteers worked both shifts each day, 7 days a week for 4 weeks before we brought in another 3 volunteers to work 2 days a week, in order to give Vanessa, James and Alastair a weekend off.  As we move out of Lockdown, more volunteers are working more shifts and “Lockdown” in the main dog section has been lifted.

The “Intake Section”, where all the new dogs go on arrival until they can be moved into the main area, was looked after by Kerry Clarke and Tansy Grahame working different days and the cats were cared for by a dedicated team, working one volunteer per shift.  By each section working separately and alone, we were able to maintain social distancing and thereby protected each other.

During this time, we took in a total of 21 dogs.  Luckily not all the dogs had to come into the shelter as many went straight into foster care.  In the last week we rescued another very malnourished dog off the street, she is named Kini, and is currently with one of our most experienced fosterers.  We have launched a separate appeal for donations to treat Kini, as she will need on-going veterinary care if she is to pull through.

Kitten season also saw us take in 20 kittens, most needed to be bottle fed for their first few weeks before they came into the shelter.  The last four were found by a dog walker, tied up in a carrier bag and left in the campo.

To date, we have a total of 39 dogs at the shelter with another 45 in foster homes and 18 cats in the cattery with a further 24 in foster homes.

As you know, our 4 fund raising outlets have been closed since Monday 16^th March which means we have lost approximately 15,200 € in income to date.  However during Lockdown, Kevin Rowe ran the equivalent of a marathon on his roof top, which raised 648 € and Sue Hackett put a Fundraiser appeal on Facebook, which brought in another 331 €.

After appealing to the public, both on the radio and on Facebook, many people donated via PayPal and direct into our bank account, which raised a further 3,233 €. We still have a huge shortfall and so we sincerely hope that our fund raising outlets will be allowed to open soon and that our loyal volunteers will be willing to continue working in them to bring in the much needed income to keep the shelter operating.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all our volunteers who worked at the shelter during this stressful time and our other volunteers who carried out 101 different tasks behind the scenes to keep the wheels turning.  We also want to thank our fosterers, as without them we would have been unable to cope and of course, we want thank everyone who donated or raised money for us.