As we've said before, it's not often on our travels that we get the opportunity to look around the places we visit. Lucky us in North Cyprus today. It was sunny and a balmy 18C. So we took a drive around to look at the donkeys and visit the Eco festival in Buyukkonuk.
Kyrenian Animal Rescue (KAR) was described as "an organisation driven by dedicated folk who work their socks off, for nowt, to improve the lot of creatures who can't help themselves," by Roy Hudd writing in 'Yours' magazine. In 1997 Margaret Ray and some friends got together to found KAR, inspired by the plight of street cats and dogs in North Cyprus. These large numbers of unowned dogs and cats scavenge for food or are lucky enough to be fed by residents. Mostly gentle and inquisitive, they live in small family groups. Their greatest risks are traffic and disease. One of KAR's [...]
Patch is joining the Animalcouriers trip from North Cyprus to the UK. Patch and her canine buddy had to fend for themselves when their original family left them behind. Sadly her buddy was killed on the main road. After three years of living on the street, Patch is now owned by Aimee, who tells us: "Patch is gentle and well behaved. She loves people and just being with them. She adores being in the car and is very good on the lead."
Courier D set off for North Cyprus last Monday amid severe weather warnings. Driving through France and Switzerland, she encountered a metre of snow. She eventually reached the Italian port of Ancona only to find it closed — they had never seen so much snow! So her departure for Greece was delayed by 24 hours. Meanwhile the Greeks called a general transport strike. We exchanged a multitude of text messages in an effort to reroute her. The original plan was for her to cross to the Greek port of Patras, drive to Piraeus, then hed to Kos, Bodrum and finally [...]
The rules for admitting pets to the UK changed on 1 January. For people wishing to bring their pets from North Cyprus, this means there's no longer a mandatory six months of quarantine for pets arriving in the UK. Under the new simplified rules, the animals need a microchip, a rabies injection, and a blood test followed by a three-month wait. Following an internal parasite treatment, they are then free to live in the UK. Animalcouriers is working with Kyrenian Animal Rescue (KAR) to transport 15 dogs on this trip. With a total of five trips likely this year, we expect [...]