Karen Garner photos with the dog she is spending £3,000 on bringing home to Scotland from Mauritius
Animal lover Karen Garner is spending nearly £3,000 to bring home a stray dog she found on holiday in Mauritius.
The 47-year-old, from the village of Hopeman in Moray, Scotland, spent most of her week-long trip to the Indian Ocean island securing ownership of the pooch.
She came across the emaciated dog, which she has named Jean Paul, at her hotel and began feeding it scraps.
British tourist spends £3,000 to bring home stray dog she found on beach in Mauritius (to join cat she brought back from Cyprus)
And it is not the first time Ms Garner has come to the aid of a needy animal - 18 months ago she rescued a stray cat while on holiday in Cyprus, which left her with a £2,000 bill.
After deciding she wanted to keep Jean Paul the dog, she drove him across Mauritius to an animal welfare group and paid to leave him there.
She said he will be vaccinated before being quarantined for six months.
Ms Garner, who went to Mauritius with partner Barry Atkins, will then pay to fly the pooch back to the UK.
She estimated the entire process would cost £2,700, which is coming out of her savings - but said Jean Paul was worth it.
Karen Garner previously forked out £2,000 to rescue a stray cat from Cyprus
Rescued: Jean Paul the dog on the beach in Mauritius
'I am not flash with my money, but thought I should use the last of my savings to do this.'
However, the experience has put her off returning to the tropical island because she found the sight of stray dogs 'heart-breaking'.
'My whole holiday was spent running around trying to save this dog,' she said.
'I was so worried that I could not relax.
'If I hadn’t done this then I think he would have died.'
Ms Garner decided on the second day of her holiday that she wanted to rescue the animal.
'I kept looking over the balcony and seeing him at the water’s edge, then I would go out with bits of chicken and sausage,' she said.
'He slept on the beach all day and a security guard said he had been there since he was a pup, so we reckon he is just under one-year old.'
The Protection of Animals Welfare Society (Paws), a group in Mauritius, says there are 200,000 stray dogs across the island, which has a human population of about 1.3 million.
Its website states: 'In Mauritius there are more dogs and cats than there are appropriate homes.
'This is a tragic global issue that animal welfare shelters all over the world like Paws struggle with day by day.'
Britain's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs website says dogs brought back to the UK from listed non-EU countries like Mauritius need to be microchipped, vaccinated against rabies and have tapeworm treatment.
The owner needs to get travel documentation including a veterinary certificate if its arriving from outside the EU and travel with an approved transport company on an authorised route.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news
Comments
Post a Comment