My very elderly Mum fell and broke her hip two weeks ago and is in hospital in the UK and so I am unexpectedly back, staying in her strangely empty house and looking after her lovely 16-year-old cat Chloe. We had cat sitters come in every day until I could get here and one of […]
Thanks to Lucie for this report on a worthy cause – the Arezzo Cat Sanctuary in Tuscany. Arezzo Cat Sanctuary Open Day (with tea and cakes) on Saturday 9th May went extremely well. It was a beautiful sunny day, the event was well attended, the food was absolutely delicious and the event raised over 700 euros
In case you are filling in your 2008 tax returns (we did ours yesterday afternoon – sigh) then don't forget the 5 per 1000. This is a piece of legislation that came into effect in 2007 and allows people to allocate a small percentage (5/1000 if you can call that a percentage) of the tax
Well, after my agonising over whether to get a rescue dog, which one to choose, how it will get on with my own menagerie and so on I decided I had to take action of some sort, so yesterday I went to sign up as a volunteer at our local canile (dog pound). It's the
I've just heard that some idiots got into our local canile (public dog kennels) last Saturday and let out all the dogs. What complete and utter cretins there are in the world. Did they think they were helping? Or maybe they thought it was funny? Didn't they realise that some of the dogs are ill
I realised yesterday that all our pets are now Italian! None of the originals we brought over from the UK are with us any more (as it was 15 years ago it would be a miracle if they still were, but saying that, the last “original” only died last year.) It got me thinking about
So now, I have a dilemma. When I started this blog I had no idea I was going to get so many 'appelli' and get in touch with so many wonderful people who devote their time to helping some of Italy's abandoned animals. I'm glad it is working out like this though. I would be
Living here in Italy has hardened me a bit. Once upon a time I would rescue anything my cats caught and use whatever means necessary to try and save its life, I now let them get on with it. I know that the poor creature is better swiftly despatched by feline means than to linger
There are several hazards and illnesses in Italy that can affect pets that you should be aware of. The chances are that it won’t happen to your pet, but it’s as well to be informed. Where appropriate I’ve put the Italian word followed by the phonetic pronunciation with the stressed syllable in capital letters. Traffic An obvious one
I have posted more dogs looking for homes on the homing and rescue page of the site. As you will see there are three new ones, Gelsomina, Lana and Pasqualino, with a fourth to follow, Papera, whose picture is here. Let me quote from the email that was sent to me by Nemony who is