11/04/2026
From one of our causes.
Kim’s Elderly & Abused.
Thank you so much to those of you kind people who offered to contribute to the costs of the Saluki cross girl. More of that later. I just need to explain some things to those people who don’t understand. I don’t mean the Kim’s Home supporters – they get it and trust me. No, the others who piled in to shout at me to either save all the dogs in the world or, conversely, to never buy or sell dogs. Well, I have never done the latter but sometimes I have bought dogs. More of that later too.
Firstly, Kim’s Home is me, just me. Me and 16 dogs in my house. No helpers for the everyday care of the dogs. There are lovely helpers who foster, fundraise and respond to urgent requests. But on a day to day basis, it is just me, aged 80 in a couple of months, looking after the dogs and doing the attendant admin 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The dogs live in my house, and I have a wonderful field a ten-minute drive away. So that limits the number of dogs I can cope with.
Secondly, I get requests nearly every day via pm to take on dogs. Either someone’s Nan has died and her family are looking for someone to take her dog off their hands. Or they have seen a poor dog on the Internet and think that it is my responsibility to save it. I see hundreds of those dogs scroll by me every day. And the best I can do is publicise the old ones. I can’t take them all on. There is only so much one person can do.
Now, let’s think about the post I put up yesterday. If I had just posted about the lurcher lad, there would have been very little response – just some comments about how nice he looks, how lovely that a gypsy/traveller is giving his dog to me etc etc. No excitement, no home offers. But then I threw into the mix that his mum was up for sale. That got people excited:
*You have to buy her
*We can club together and buy her
*How dare he sell dogs
*You can’t leave her behind – it would be cruel
*If you don’t buy her, she will be bred from – well that ship has sailed
* Why are you selling dogs? I am not!
And my favourite: *what lowlife sells dogs? Well, everyone who has ever bred a litter of pups, of course. The shouters might have bought a puppy from a breeder. All those dogs at Crufts had all been bred and mostly sold on. But that’s OK, is it? Anyway I have never done that.
And so on and so on.
Right, now on to the subject of buying dogs out of trouble. Yes, I have done it in the past. I paid to get dogs away from abusers using my own money, my salary when I worked in education. This was before the days of Kim’s Home, of course. Now that I am retired and living on a pension, I can’t afford to do that. And I cannot in good conscience use money donated to Kim’s Home. That money was donated and raised to look after the dogs here and to give a lifeline to the 3 dogs that we sponsor in rescues in Romania. Not for me to have a spending spree for dogs. So, if I were to offer to buy the Saluki cross girl, I would have to seek the blessing of the Kim’s Home supporters. Not the people who only come on here to join in a fight.
Why am I tempted to buy this dog? Remember that the lurcher lad is given for free. Well, the problem is that I had met her. It is hard to refuse to help a dog that one has spoken to. The owner brought her to me after he had bought her for me to scan her and to check that she was not stolen. Which I did and she wasn’t. And I promised her that I would get her one day. That’s when I took her photo. And, so, yes, I am tempted.
But taking one or both of those dogs is not as easy as it sounds. Where are they going to go? I can’t take in any more. So I have to find a rescue place for each of them. And that’s not easy these days. Rescues are rammed. I have good relations with a lot of rescues to which I have passed dogs over the last 30 years. But they can’t help if they are full to bursting. I can use Kim’s Home funds to pay for vaccinations and neutering but I can’t magic up homes, temporary or permanent. Foster homes, just like forever homes, have to be carefully checked before a dog can be entrusted to them. It’s all a bit complicated.
Now, finally on to the subject of the gyspy/travellers and one in particular. Gypsy/travellers have dogs primarily for working – lurchers and spaniels. They also have pet dogs like Chihuahuas as pets in their homes. The life of a working dog, whether in a gypsy/traveller site or on a farm on in hunting kennels, is not the same as the way we treat our pet dogs, of course. It might be hard but it’s not necessarily cruel. There are good and bad in every community. And there are many pet dog owners who are evil to their dogs. And, yes, they buy and sell dogs, and, yes, they sometimes breed from their dogs. It’s legal and it is part of their culture. You may not like it but it is the way it is.
Now, let me tell you about the person who is selling the Saluki cross girl. I have known him for 30 years. I bought my first Saluki from him for £50. That was my beautiful Susie. During the last 30 years, this person has brought to me about 100 dogs, maybe more. Some of them have been his own dogs whom he wanted to retire to a good home – mine. Others he has got out of cruel situations and brought to me. I could write a book about the dogs he has saved from abuse. He’s a gypsy/traveller and he hates cruelty. Who knew that was possible? More than that, he has helped many people trace their stolen dogs. Because he is part of the community, he can get intelligence on where stolen dogs are and he will either negotiate a return or he will take them back by force. It helps that he is a Champion bare-knuckle fighter, I guess. And he never takes a reward. What’s even more: last year 2 dogs were stolen from a family and the child of the family was distraught. My friend managed to find out that the thief had sold them on to travellers. But the traveller was asking for a payment of £2000. When I showed my friend the picture of the child with her dogs before they were stolen, he was so moved that he paid the money himself. Would you believe that!
The dogs that he has saved over all those years and have come to me did not all stay, of course. I passed them to good rescues: Forever Hounds’ Trust, Dogs’ Trust, Lurcher SOS, Saluki Welfare, Hollyhedge Rescue, St Francis Dogs’ Home and many others. And they went on to find lovely homes.
And what about my dogs? Here’s just a small selection of the dogs he has brought to me.
Grace – my poster dog. December 18, 2008, late in the evening I get a phone call from my gypsy friend who told me that he had stopped some gypsy lads putting a dog out on the road to be crushed so that no-one could ever see how emaciated she was. He wanted me to take the dog, but warned me that she was unlikely to survive. Well, she did survive miraculously, and lived here for 16 years.
Charlie – who is sick at the moment. 13 years ago, my friend saw him in a skeletal state being beaten by his owner. He took him away and brought him here.
Stella and Arthur
When I saw an advert on Gumtree for Saluki pups - obviously in a gypsy/traveller site - I asked my friend if he could help me get at least one female out of the breeding spiral. He did. Actually, it got out of hand and we ended up saving the whole litter – 6 of them – and then later the mother and even the father. But that’s a long, long story.
Olive was a sickly pup that he found and gave to me. Not the best gift because she had Parvo. But she survived, was rehomed and then bounced back here.
Freckles – he bought her because he was so sorry for her. She was a mess and had been abused by multiple owners apparently. He gave her to me. My vet pieced her back together and now she has been chasing tennis balls and digging my field for the last 5 years.
Berry – my friend found her imprisoned in a steel drum and starved by her owner on a site. He got hold of her and brought her to me. It took a while for her to recover and be able to run.
Pippin – OK, he was an accident. My friend had bred him but couldn’t sell the litter. So he offered Pippin to me. I agreed to take him because I knew someone who wanted a dog just like him. It didn’t happen because Pippin disgraced himself and had to stay in case he bit anyone else.
And Wren – some of you might remember Teasel, my beloved Yorkshire terrier. My friend found her tied to an outside kennel in the cold. He had seen her many times before and been saddened by her cries. So he bought her. And brought her to me. What a wonderful little dog! 2 and a half years later she died suddenly of heart failure. My friend saw how devastated I was. A few weeks later, he turns up at my door with Wren. Now, I know it doesn’t work like that. One cannot replace a beloved dog. But my friend meant well. I intended to rehome her but she’s still here.
And Anise. He met a fellow traveller who owned Anise. My friend saw what a terrible state she was in and he persuaded the owner to give up the dog so that she could get treatment. Remember it was a huge tumour in her mouth that had been there so long that she could barely eat, and the tumour had pushed her jaw out of shape and had rubbed away a portion of her gum exposing the roots of 4 teeth. Just try to imagine the pain.
So, that’s it. It’s why I get angry when people attack all gypsy/travellers.
So back to the dogs I posted about yesterday. I will do my best to find them places. The asking price for the Saluki cross girl is £650. I won’t take that money out of Kim’s Home funds but, if anyone wants to chip in, I will get her as soon as I can find a place for her.
And here’s Anise to remind you of the kindness of one man.
