One phone call isn't enough

Many people who call the CAS volunteers think that a single phone call can result in the immediate solving of their problem.

Most people genuinely want to help a cat or dog but hope that calling one of the 2 or 3 active CAS volunteers will mean that they themselves will not have to actually do anything and that only CAS has any responsibility within local society to act. Totally untrue and unrealistic, I’m afraid.

 

We receive calls reporting the following kind of incidents –

• I’ve seen a black dog roaming free twice this week – can you come and get it?
• There’s a mother cat and 3 kittens outside and it’s raining tonight. Can you come and get them?
• Sorry to call at 11:30 but I can hear a dog howling in the valley below me…
• We’ve just come back from a night out and there’s a dog messing in the rubbish near us……
• There’s a man near Granada who keeps his dog on a chain all day, can you come and take it away?

 

And the one we really, really HATE….

• We ‘re going back to England day after tomorrow. Will you come and collect our two dogs, cos they can’t come with us ?  OR
• We’re taking our dog back to England tomorrow but we’ve a cat with 8 kittens that we don’t want. When will you pick them up?

These are actual calls that we’ve received lately.

 

It’s astounding how many people are “suddenly” returning to the UK and cannot (will not) take their pets. Personally, I call it the “Crime Stoppers Effect!”

 

Our resources to deal with such calls consists of :

Ø       3 volunteers

Ø       12 kennel spaces (always full!)

Ø       A network of fosterers – similarly always overwhelmed by our pleas to “Just take another cat/dog for a few days…..”

Ø       One Website (www.casnerja.org) on which we place photographs of cats & dogs along with information on each of them. This website is updated 3 or 4 times each day & is getting more and more “visits” from people interested in adopting an animal.

 

We can really only utilise our resources effectively if individuals help us – mainly by agreeing to care for the animal in question whilst we add details to the website and then investigate how we can move animals from one place to another and accommodate them.

 

Spread the Word please……..