Elati

In 1998 we decided to take early retirement, David’s health was not good and he needed to live in a warmer climate. Consequently we moved to Portugal and lived on the Algarve, and bought a camper van in order to travel about and enjoy our retirement.

The first long haul trip we took found us in Kefalonia, and we loved it as much we had the first time we had visited. We decided to sell up in Portugal and move here permanently.

We purchased the house in Svoronata, and thought it would be a great base from which explore (in our camper van) all the other islands, and those parts of Europe we had not visited yet. We arrived in September, and it started to go pear shaped in the December when we gained a dog - my choice I might add.

Within two weeks she had found a kitten in a bad way, so we then had Bess and Lucy.

The following March I heard about a dog that was desperate for a home and along came Lulu, quickly followed by a little dog that was very sick and living rough in Lakithra. By this time the old feral cat that lived in the garden had brought me three kittens. Although she was untouchable, she allowed me to handle the kittens and brought them three times a day for food: what a cheek!

The kittens moved in with us, and mum stayed in the garden. We were now up to 3 dogs and 4 cats. How how were going to travel around?

OK, we were beaten, so we decided to help a few more out. Next came Pebbles, who was recovering from a car accident, quickly followed by Ela who was boarding for 7 months prior to going to the UK. Somewhere along the way we had also gained 4 kittens which, at only 7 days old when they arrived, needed bottle feeding

Then along came the boys, Paddy and Murphy, also bottle feeders, who looked as if they were going to become very large dogs, very quickly. These two were the first to be re-homed in Germany, and it hurt like hell - we almost backed out at the last minute, but we knew that if we didn’t part with them, we wouldn’t be able to help any more, so we went ahead. They are now happily settled, and very much loved by their new owners. They are also very big dogs.

After this we never seemed to be without around 15 dogs at any time, and have managed to home 40 dogs in the past two years, all were vaccinated and neutered prior to being homed.

This is basically how it began. In order to help with the costs we took in day boarders during the summer, taking care of dogs while their owners were at work.

We have now expanded our operations to cover (amongst other things) neutering and release programmes for cats and dogs, winter feeding stations, and liaison with the Mayor’s office and the police.

Note: PO Boxes will not show correctly on the map below.