The Shelter

Nestling in a hollow between the bustling city of Arrecife, Lanzarote’s capital and Tahiche, a town famous for the Cesar Manrique Foundation, a popular tourist attraction, is the SARA Animal Shelter. This safe haven is home for lost, abandoned or mistreated cats and dogs all looking to be re-homed in a loving family. The shelter was originally a municipal pound until animal lover, Ana Carta, convinced the authorities to let her open a much needed shelter there. She swiftly rescued 40 dogs from certain death from, what’s known here as the “killing station” and SARA was born. The shelter was named SARA in memory of one of Ana’s own dogs that had recently passed away. Now, 20 years on, the shelter houses around 300 animals at any one time. 

Originally, just a few small out buildings and a handful of kennels, the shelter is now a myriad of passageways and small kennel blocks which is somewhat confusing to first time visitors. This is not an ideal format, as a custom built shelter is easier to run, but the existing layout has evolved over the years as funds became available.

Like most animal shelters, SARA is always overcrowded as it is difficult to say No when presented with some poor creature. The kennels are designed to house 80 dogs (two to a kennel) but there is usually between 160 and 200 dogs in residence. At one point, in 2006, we had a record 250 dogs in and every available space was converted to doggy living quarters – the office, the staff room, the laundry and even the bathroom!
The cattery is much the same story. Numbers here fluctuate with the seasons. Designed for 40 cats and kittens the average number of residents is 80 but at “kitten time” this has been known to rise to 140. These large numbers pose problems if we get an outbreak of Cat Flu and certain cats have to be quarantined.

The Staff

There are five members of staff and a vet coping with an average of 250 to 300 animals at SARA. Totally overworked and under paid, the team deserves a very BIG pat on the back for all their hard work and devotion as they certainly don’t work at SARA for the money!

Lidia is our vet and is kept very busy with daily neutering operations. All the puppies and kittens that are adopted from SARA have to have their first course of injections, so in between operations there are always vaccinations to be done. She works extremely hard as, with the amount of resident animals to attend to, there is also the day to day care to see to. She is in charge of the dog hospital and also the cat quarantine areas, the latter giving her plenty to do if there is a cat flu epidemic for example. Lidia's first language is Spanish but has a reasonable knowledge of English, especially on the subject of animals, but, like Raquel is a little shy in using it.

Raquel is responsible for many things and is generally the back bone of the shelter. Officially the administrator/secretary she works for most of her time in the Examination Room keeping the animal files up to date. She is also on hand to deal with any Spanish speaking visitors and phone calls. She cleans and feeds the animals in both the dog hospital and cattery quarantine and is often seen with paint brush in hand trying to keep the shelter looking reasonably smart. She is a Jack (or should that be Jill) of all trades, as it is Raquel who covers for the other members of staff if they are off work due to illness or holidays etc.

Felipe is one of two kennel hands and has been working at SARA for near on 20 years. He has the unenviable job of arriving first in the morning and cleaning the overnight accumulation of dog poop from the kennels and passageways. He is also available during opening hours to assist with the Spanish speaking visitors and can often be heard singing away in the kennel blocks during feeding times. He has a good knowledge of the dogs in his care and decides which dogs are able to share with others etc.

Gunter is another of our kennel hands and apart from his own duties, covers for Felipe on his day off. He also has a section of the kennels which he is responsible for (cleaning, feeding etc) but his main areas are the Teenagers and the Puppy Block. Gunther started out as a volunteer at SARA but eventually became a member of staff when a post became available. 

Klaus is the German coordinator at the shelter. Along with dealing with German speaking visitors etc he deals with all the flights and travel arrangements for the animals being adopted in mainland Europe. He also covers some feeding and cleaning duties for holidays and days off.  Klaus is also the “odd job man” doing small repairs, of which there are many in a shelter of this size and age.