Discussion
I thought it would be nice to share our story with you all and tell you the tale of Zoe.
We were on holiday in Zakynthos (Zante) and as our hotel was in the middle of nowhere we had a car hired for the whole week. (as this is piston heads it was a 1.2 Nissan Micra 5 door)
On our second day into the holiday we were on the way back from a day out in Keri driving in the middle of nowhere and a little lost. So we pulled over at the side of the road to grab the map and a bottle of water out of the boot and noticed a cardboard box making some rustling noises, not knowing what to find we initially threw a stone at it, then poked it with a stick, and eventually opened the box to find a tiny (and I mean tiny) 5 day old puppy in there on a old tshirt. It was whimpering and the smell wasn’t too good. She was so young that her eyes were not even open yet and she couldn’t walk or stand.
We were in the middle of nowhere basically on a dirt-track road, no one in sight and no houses as far as the eye could see. We scooped the puppy up and put some water in the palm of my hand, this wasn’t ideal but the puppy absolutely lapped it up, it must have been so thirsty.
Mrs Sidekickdmr had it on her lap as we drove to the nearest village. We were only on holiday and had nowhere to keep the puppy in the hotel so the initial plan was to find a local with a dog and ask them to take it in. This didn’t go to plan and they didn’t even seem surprised at what we found, not interested at all.
So as it was late and no vets would be open we picked up some cows milk from a local shop (not ideal I know but it was an emergency) and headed back to the hotel. Over the night the dog would wake every couple of hours and start wimpering for some more milk, again just from the palm of our hands and this wasn’t ideal but needs must.
These are the pics we took that night:
First thing the next morning we went on the hunt for a vets, hoping to just give the puppy over and ask them to look after it and rehome it. The first vets we found insisted that as it was so young it would die without its mother and we should put it down there and then. We obviously had come to adore this little puppy so declined and thought we would try another vets, this one seemed more helpful but didn’t speak a word of English, so we just brought some puppy milk and a bottle and headed to a bar with WiFi to have a look for someone that can help.
By doing a little googling we found somewhere based in the UK called Holbrook animal rescue that according to their website do a lot of work with animals in Greece so I dropped them an email asking if they could help and we headed back to the hotel. This night at 3.00 in the morning whilst feeding her from the bottle I caught a reflection off her face, while in out hands being fed she opened her tiny eyes for the first time ever, it was so amazing to know that we were the first thing she ever saw.
No reply that night but the next morning they gave me the details of Sue, someone that is based in Zakynthos and assists them in rescuing dogs from there. We called her and she was brilliant, very helpful and gave us the number of the only “decent” vet on the island, we headed straight there and as soon as we got there we could tell we were in good hands, they had a look over the puppy and confirmed that she was indeed a she, 6 days old by this point and told us she may survive if we keep up what we were doing as she was very strong. she was flea and worm infested so they treated this for free too. (we left a good donation). We brought a carrier and some more puppy milk and headed home to discuss the plan.
We decided that we had become so attached to the lilt mite that we didn’t want to loose her and we would like to bring her back to the UK, so we called sue and amazingly she confirmed that she would look after Zoe until she was old enough to have her jabs/chips and fly to the UK. So we dropped her off at Sue’s and had a long chat about what she does (she was looking after 8 cats, 6 dogs, a parrot, a horse and Zoe by this point, all from her own home with no funding as there is no “charity” status available over there). We were then able to enjoy the rest of our holiday but it did feel empty without Little Zoe.
The day before we were due to fly home we popped back to say goodbye to Zoe and thank Sue again, this is where we took these pics.
Since we have been back Sue has been in touch sending pictures and sorting out the Jabs/passport etc and we are expecting to pick her up from Gatwick on the 18th September.
I cant wait!!!!
We were on holiday in Zakynthos (Zante) and as our hotel was in the middle of nowhere we had a car hired for the whole week. (as this is piston heads it was a 1.2 Nissan Micra 5 door)
On our second day into the holiday we were on the way back from a day out in Keri driving in the middle of nowhere and a little lost. So we pulled over at the side of the road to grab the map and a bottle of water out of the boot and noticed a cardboard box making some rustling noises, not knowing what to find we initially threw a stone at it, then poked it with a stick, and eventually opened the box to find a tiny (and I mean tiny) 5 day old puppy in there on a old tshirt. It was whimpering and the smell wasn’t too good. She was so young that her eyes were not even open yet and she couldn’t walk or stand.
We were in the middle of nowhere basically on a dirt-track road, no one in sight and no houses as far as the eye could see. We scooped the puppy up and put some water in the palm of my hand, this wasn’t ideal but the puppy absolutely lapped it up, it must have been so thirsty.
Mrs Sidekickdmr had it on her lap as we drove to the nearest village. We were only on holiday and had nowhere to keep the puppy in the hotel so the initial plan was to find a local with a dog and ask them to take it in. This didn’t go to plan and they didn’t even seem surprised at what we found, not interested at all.
So as it was late and no vets would be open we picked up some cows milk from a local shop (not ideal I know but it was an emergency) and headed back to the hotel. Over the night the dog would wake every couple of hours and start wimpering for some more milk, again just from the palm of our hands and this wasn’t ideal but needs must.
These are the pics we took that night:
First thing the next morning we went on the hunt for a vets, hoping to just give the puppy over and ask them to look after it and rehome it. The first vets we found insisted that as it was so young it would die without its mother and we should put it down there and then. We obviously had come to adore this little puppy so declined and thought we would try another vets, this one seemed more helpful but didn’t speak a word of English, so we just brought some puppy milk and a bottle and headed to a bar with WiFi to have a look for someone that can help.
By doing a little googling we found somewhere based in the UK called Holbrook animal rescue that according to their website do a lot of work with animals in Greece so I dropped them an email asking if they could help and we headed back to the hotel. This night at 3.00 in the morning whilst feeding her from the bottle I caught a reflection off her face, while in out hands being fed she opened her tiny eyes for the first time ever, it was so amazing to know that we were the first thing she ever saw.
No reply that night but the next morning they gave me the details of Sue, someone that is based in Zakynthos and assists them in rescuing dogs from there. We called her and she was brilliant, very helpful and gave us the number of the only “decent” vet on the island, we headed straight there and as soon as we got there we could tell we were in good hands, they had a look over the puppy and confirmed that she was indeed a she, 6 days old by this point and told us she may survive if we keep up what we were doing as she was very strong. she was flea and worm infested so they treated this for free too. (we left a good donation). We brought a carrier and some more puppy milk and headed home to discuss the plan.
We decided that we had become so attached to the lilt mite that we didn’t want to loose her and we would like to bring her back to the UK, so we called sue and amazingly she confirmed that she would look after Zoe until she was old enough to have her jabs/chips and fly to the UK. So we dropped her off at Sue’s and had a long chat about what she does (she was looking after 8 cats, 6 dogs, a parrot, a horse and Zoe by this point, all from her own home with no funding as there is no “charity” status available over there). We were then able to enjoy the rest of our holiday but it did feel empty without Little Zoe.
The day before we were due to fly home we popped back to say goodbye to Zoe and thank Sue again, this is where we took these pics.
Since we have been back Sue has been in touch sending pictures and sorting out the Jabs/passport etc and we are expecting to pick her up from Gatwick on the 18th September.
I cant wait!!!!
Edited by sidekickdmr on Tuesday 7th August 21:04
We originally called it "zack" as we found him in zakynthos but we found out at the vets that the dangly thing between it's legs wasn't a willie 
so we neede to rethink the name and once on doing some research we found out that "Zoe" means "Life" in Greek!
The thing that baffles me is the chances of us finding her, you could have laid in the middle of the road for an hour and you wouldn't have seen another car, I reckon that another couple of hours as she would have been dead through dehydration.
Apparently the greeks don't bother neutering their dogs and when the obvious happens they don't like killing their dogs puppy's (or having them put down) so they leave them out in the open and let the "gods" decide it's fate.
One lucky pup!
so we neede to rethink the name and once on doing some research we found out that "Zoe" means "Life" in Greek!The thing that baffles me is the chances of us finding her, you could have laid in the middle of the road for an hour and you wouldn't have seen another car, I reckon that another couple of hours as she would have been dead through dehydration.
Apparently the greeks don't bother neutering their dogs and when the obvious happens they don't like killing their dogs puppy's (or having them put down) so they leave them out in the open and let the "gods" decide it's fate.
One lucky pup!
Ah thanks guys, really wasn't expecting anyone to donate, just wanted to share the story.
I'll drop Holbrook a quick email now and just let them know that the donations are for the zakynthos/sue!
Really appreciate it guys, thanks for your generousity!
You'll be helping a great cause!
I'll drop Holbrook a quick email now and just let them know that the donations are for the zakynthos/sue!
Really appreciate it guys, thanks for your generousity!
You'll be helping a great cause!
Edited by sidekickdmr on Tuesday 7th August 21:20
Morningside said:
How much will it cost to get her back to the UK?
The flight alone is about £500 so in total it has cost us well over £1,000 but it's worth it.We could have gone out and brought a puppy local for less and left Zoe with sue but we grew so attached to her on those first few days, we will always have a special connection and a nice story to go with it.
Just hope she picks up the English language ok!
parakitaMol. said:
What a lovely story, well done to you for taking the time to look after the little soul when you were there AND following through to make sure she was properly taken care of.
Really great to see
I remember my very fist holiday ever was to Kos an I spent the entire time in tears at all the little starving and sick cats who were beaten out of restaurants with sticks if they came around to beg for food. They don't seem to have much repect at all out there.
Will look forward to hearing how she gets on - I bet you can't wait for her to arrive!
I was quite suprised actually, we didn't really see any strays while we were there, not sure if that is a good thing or not though!Really great to see
I remember my very fist holiday ever was to Kos an I spent the entire time in tears at all the little starving and sick cats who were beaten out of restaurants with sticks if they came around to beg for food. They don't seem to have much repect at all out there.Will look forward to hearing how she gets on - I bet you can't wait for her to arrive!
mrmaggit said:
She has managed to avoid quarantine, I see then?
As of the 1st jan this year there are no quarantine laws for animals coming from the EU!Thanks for the kind words guys, it's so good to get her home and she has settled straight in! (apart from being a bit colder than normal lol)
She even got on with the cat unbelivably well straight away!
Apprehensive at first
But now friends
VRSAndy said:
This has to be the nicest story I've ever read on PH. My girlfriend cried when she read it. This act says a hell of a lot about you as people, well done, you should be extremely proud of yourselves.
Your girlfriend hey? 
Thanks but to be honest it doesn't really feel like we have done anything!
currently cuddled up with Zoe and Eddie both on my lap but it still hasn't sunk in!
Rach* said:
+1 she's beautiful, congrats to you all & lots of happy years ahead xx
Aw bless you guys, I think it's finally starting to sing in what we have let ourselves in for 
A little video of her bullying the cat lol
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r92/sidekickdmr...
Good to hear from you sue, hope you are coping with the new puppy's!
Zoe has settled in really well, she has met all of the family and their dogs and we have been for some awesome walks together!
We even had a photoshoot the other day, 9 members of my family, Zoe, Eddie (our cat), 2 pugs, a great Dane ridgeback cross, a Labrador and 2 Bengal cats, it was mayhem lol
Anyway, some more pictures:
Zoe has settled in really well, she has met all of the family and their dogs and we have been for some awesome walks together!
We even had a photoshoot the other day, 9 members of my family, Zoe, Eddie (our cat), 2 pugs, a great Dane ridgeback cross, a Labrador and 2 Bengal cats, it was mayhem lol
Anyway, some more pictures:
Quick update!
Apart from a minor thorn paw interface needing surgery things have been plain sailing with our little Greek hound.
We found out she is a Hellenic hound (Greek harehound) although she is far far to lazy to be chasing any rabbits so Greese won't be missing her.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Harehound
She has been great, so so well behaved and loving, happily curls up on my lap on the sofa all night (although she is getting a bit big for that now)
And a random one of breaded Eddie
Apart from a minor thorn paw interface needing surgery things have been plain sailing with our little Greek hound.
We found out she is a Hellenic hound (Greek harehound) although she is far far to lazy to be chasing any rabbits so Greese won't be missing her.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Harehound
She has been great, so so well behaved and loving, happily curls up on my lap on the sofa all night (although she is getting a bit big for that now)
And a random one of breaded Eddie
Thought it's been about a year and people may like an update.
Well if I'm honest, there isn't much of an update, she has been as good as gold, great little guard dog and fantastic with kids/other animals and is no hassle at all.
We move into a new house next week next to a 200 acre woods so she will be well in her element.
Anyway, a few random pics :-)
Well if I'm honest, there isn't much of an update, she has been as good as gold, great little guard dog and fantastic with kids/other animals and is no hassle at all.
We move into a new house next week next to a 200 acre woods so she will be well in her element.
Anyway, a few random pics :-)
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