News from the Nerja Donkey Sanctuary

Phew! 2008 was a busy year for us with nearly 1,000 rescue calls being made to our rescue crew for big animal rescues, and nearly 3,000 telephone calls wanting information or help.

But starting in October, it all went terribly wrong with donations just drying up, forcing the running down of the rescue crew and outreach project as we just could not afford to operate either.

Click on the donkey above to visit the website of the Nerja Donkey Sanctuary

The good news though is that we have managed to secure new homes for 37 out of a total of 43
of the horses we have had waiting to be re-homed, including seven out of the 12 we had temporarily stabled with Genna and Jo at Los Tejanos equestrian centre in Frigiliana but the remaining five horses are only suitable as companion horses so if you need a companion horse, please call in to Los Tejanos and see Genna.

We were also extremely lucky to have found homes for 32 out of 35 of our outreach horses, donkeys and mules awaiting re-homing that had been just “parked” in nearby fields. It was probably the stark realisation that if we could not have found new homes for them that they would have had to have been put down that reached the hearts of the people that offered to re-home our desperate animals.

Finding new homes for these, plus nine dogs, 11 pups, three cats and nine kittens in the same month (although we still have 14 dogs, 11 pups, five cats and seven kittens needing new homes urgently) means that we can rest a bit easier and live in the hope that the economic crisis may ease and we can afford to re-start the rescue service and outreach project again.

But in this dreadful and desperate economic crisis, harsh as it may be, we just have to say no to helping new animals and try our best to raise the €4,000 a month needed to keep Nerja open. Unless things look up, the future of the Nerja sanctuary and its animals looks very bleak as December brought us another loss, making our growing deficit now nearly €65,000 and we just can't go on as we are. So please help by donating or sponsoring a rescued animal if you visit us, but if you can't, you can support us on line at our website by paypal, debit or credit card, and if you live in Spain or overseas, please try to fund raise for us as every little helps.

Visitors are often amazed that we can run the sanctuary for €4,000 a month but as we have no paid staff and are all volunteers, we can do so much for so little. Take for example our abandoned dogs, pups, cats and kittens thrown over the gates in plastic bags, or just dumped outside in boxes, and as we found new happy and loving homes for over 300 of them last year alone, we know it costs us just just 25 cents a day to keep just one of them, happy, safe and well.

If you are visiting, donations of dry cat and dog food can really help us help them. But sadly, please be aware that in the current crisis we just can't accept any more dogs or cats into care.

Of course, whilst we always try to re-home abandoned or rescued animals, and we have managed over the years to re-home over 5,000 donkeys, mules and horses, for some, the Nerja sanctuary is their home. But it is not just home for big animals, but for other animals such as elderly Janice who can just never be re-homed.

Janice lived her entire life in a car park in the Cerro Gordo national park before she was brought to us by Alix and Kevin of Restaurant Mirador de Cerro Gordo. Upon learning that her days were numbered as there was a new law which required the shooting of any loose dogs in the national parks, they had tried taking her home with them but to no avail as she howled and just pined away. We tried re-homing her with families with country fincas but all attempts failed as she was miserable and would not eat and had to be brought back each time.

Eventually the penny dropped, and we realised that she had spent her entire life living rough, meeting and greeting visitors and being fed scraps. So she has stayed with us and is now a very happy dog meeting and greeting visitors when she wants to, or just spending her last days happily snoozing away in her, not one, but three various special places she just loves.

And by the way, for those of you who help us by taking our dogs for nice walks, Janice refuses to leave the safety of the sanctuary to go outside for walks.

Others for whom the sanctuary is their home include 12-year-old Flash (left), who has had a chequered life, including being a drug runner’s “mule”.

When his owner was arrested, Flash, who was quite ill and had a badly injured rear foot, was remanded into our custody as a “material witness” and when his owner was eventually given a very long prison sentence, Flash still had to stay with us, pending various appeals by his owner.

After quite a lot of work by our vet, including making a special shoe for him to wear on one foot when the going gets tough, Flash is doing fine and provided we keep an eye on him, he is a very happy donkey, although full of mischief, and will grab the odd handbag or hat from a visitor for a game of hide and seek whenever he can, although he always brings it back, but usually a bit on the soggy side!

Or the two-year-old inseparable pair of babies, Pinky and Perky and their two-year-old best friend, the huge and very rare baby giant Andalucian donkey, Trevor (the kids’ club won the competition to name him) were all rescued, just a few months old and nearly dead from a dealer’s yard where the other 23 animals were already dead. They had all suffered dreadful liver and kidney damage and were so ill that they had to stay near the yard for a few months before we could even move them to Nerja for long term treatment. An eye has to be kept on them even today but to look after and care for donkeys such as these three, it costs us just €5 a day.

We rarely publicise the fact that the sanctuary is also an animal hospice where we frequently bring in terminally ill or badly injured animals who will never recover fully and just can't be re-homed and for whom all we can do is give them a few months of tender loving and pain free care until quality of life becomes an issue. But we never put down any animal because of cost. These have included 30-year-old Twiggy, originally an army breeding mare who, when her usefulness was over, was sold on and then abandoned when she no longer could produce foals. When we found her, wandering and suffering from malnutrition and thirst in a dried up river bed, her hooves were overgrown. She was a determined lady but sadly had to be put to sleep a few months later when her quality of life decreased and we could no longer help her.

We also have a 40-year-old donkey called Mocarra, who is so gentle and peaceful that she is allowed to wander around and meet visitors when they arrive and in winter has her nice winter coat on.

We also have a 40-year-old mule called Rubi who, although nearly blind, is otherwise very happy and content and, after all, would you like to be put down because of lack of sight?

As for the New Year, it is going to be very tough as we are going to be fighting for survival and to raise the money to at least keep the sanctuary open and a roof over our rescued animals’ heads.

The last thing we needed was to have a new roundabout built slap bang outside our gates (pictured right) so parking is going to be difficult (leave your cars up the road in the large area reserved for car parking, please), and it all happened without so much as a word in our ear, never mind a letter . . .

The sanctuary receives no grants of any kind and relies totally upon the help and support of the public and the many local businesses and firms in and around Nerja, Torrox, and other places that continue to help and support us, without whose help we would have closed our doors a long time ago.

How you can help

Our opening times are 10 am to 4 pm weekdays and 10 am to 1 pm at weekends. We are open every day of the year and admission is free. If you can’t visit us this time then you can find out more about us, or even adopt a donkey or other animal or donate by debit or credit card or PAYPAL via our website at here or here. Email here, here or here.

Information on volunteering or opening hours, call Kate on (+34) 664 558 135 or Rory on (+34) 664 558 133.

For rescues, call (+34) 618 46 7575 and for fund raising or helping at the car boot stall, call Irene on (+34) 690 047 350.

You can donate in sterling or euros with cheques payable to Nerja Donkey Sanctuary, Apartado de Correos 414, Nerja, 29780, Malaga, Spain.

Bank transfers to Banco Popular Nerja No: 0075- 1458-25 060 00108-86.

IBAN ES37007514582506000010886

BIC POPUESMM

The Nerja Donkey Sanctuary is the founder member of Asociación de Malaga de los Santuarios del Burro - a registered charity dedicated to defending the environment and the rescue and care of animals, registered number 7502 and NIF G92826304.

JIM HORNE