Help Animals

Written in 2002, by Christophe.

It’s 12 years that I live in Greece and that’s a torture for us to see how 80% of Greek people behave with animals.

Since I was 20, I realized that animals have exactly the same right as us.  Except to protect your life or to eat (We even have to take care with this one) there are no reasons to kill or hurt any animals.

Here in Greece it’s not like that. One old guy in the village, that we know said to Maria “Yes me and my son we poison dogs from time to time, they pee on our chairs in front of our bar!”. Some people would feel to take a gun and kill the guy, but then you have to kill 1/2 of the village because most people believe that if a dog is in your way, just get rid of him like an old table that you throw in the bin.

It’s really difficult to understand and to imagine, for people who respect animals, because these people don’t even look like bad people, they don’t even hate dogs! Animals just don’t have any meaning for them!  I use to hate them, not anymore, because it’s not the point. It comes from their education here in Greece. From been a kid it will be always a grandmother which will yell “be careful there is a dog” grabbing violently her grand kids in her arms while a small puppy come to say hello, his tail moving gently, I’ve seen it 100 times. So, from been kids, they are scared and you cannot like something that you are scared of! You will see often adults crossing the road if you pass with a small dog. There is a very convenient legend amongst  Greek people that dogs carry a lot of dangerous diseases, doesn’t matter if they are vaccinated or not!

Because of fashion, in Greece as well, they have started to buy pedigree dogs like status symbol to compliment the Mercedes. They usually get rid of them after 3 months, when they realize that it’s not just an ornament and they need care.

Epidavros theatre, spring 2001, Maria my girl friend work at the information desk, her and some friend take care of the 15 dogs abandoned in the huge park. They fed them and they brought the help of veterinaries to sterilize most of them (against advice of the town mayor). 3 weeks later they all died… poisoned.

Some years after I picked up on the road (30 minutes to get here to climb in the minibus) a superb female (type Pyrenean Shepherd) who had an accident. I brought her to the vet (2 hours drive away), she had to be operated on twice. She recovered at our house from the operation. She is the most friendly dog you can imagine, children love her, she doesn’t even know how to bark. 

She died of poison after one month exactly, her name was Lola.

This summer 03, Maria my girl friend called me from our house in Greece to tell me that Julie a female dog that we had been taking care of for 2 months just died after been poisoned. Julie had given birth to 9 puppies, they had all been killed before we could find them. Julie was not very well after that, so when she recover we decided to have her sterilized, we collected some money for it and the operation was fine. She stayed at our house recovering gently, she started to go running a bit with me. 

Me and Maria had to leave to go to France, Maria came back alone to find that Julie had died near our house 2 days before!

Each time that we go to France we take as many dogs as we can (up to 12) and try to find a refuge where we know they never kill dogs even if they have to keep them forever. We didn’t take Julie because she was a bit old and not really “beautiful”. We had taken only Maya a 3 month old female abandonee on the harbor with one broken euil (she had been beaten told us the vet...) So

• If you like dogs for who they are and not for what you look like with them.
• If you have some ideas how to help them here.
• If you can help with food, collar, vaccine, or fine places, etc
• If you are veterinaries and would like to come over to sterilize and vaccine animals... Contact us

Don’t forget that dogs need as much affection as food, especially young. Give them your love, they will give it back 100 time. You will be their good –don’t abuse it.

Please don’t buy a Pedigree dog in an elevage. They are consanguine for most, so not elfi and fragile.

If you take one in a refuge –we know it’s not easy, you save his life! Don’t go there like in a shop to buy something precise, just leave your heart to speak for you, forget the look, the size, do not wonder if you will look cool or virile with him.

What do we do here in Epidavros? Try to help them as much as we can. Not all our work is as bad as the experience related, we found places for many animals who are now very happy.

Flying-Paradise arrives to cover most of the expenses. This page is not a trick to get your money, however if you want to give us some, it will be use ONLY for veterinary expenses. When we have an emergency or to sterilize a dog, a local vet gives us a discount.

We would like to buy a field and build a refuge, but that’s another story!

Christophe and Maria

If you are a Veterinary or if you know one.

Every year about 30 dogs are killed by poison, in the village where we live. We are trying our best to help animals –Feeding them, trying to find somebody to take them, sterilizing them, etc

We are offering 50% discount on our holidays to any veterinaries that will come to our place to sterilize animals part time. If you know a vet, please pass him the message, this is either for flying holidays or simply for a relaxing holidays. Contact Christophe or Maria at info@flying-paradise.com