On August 17, we took in a stray Alaskan Malamute which had approached us while we were on our terrace in Bidnija. Since we are here only for a holiday and therefore will shortly be returning home, we were concerned when we found out that no missing dog reports had been made and that it had been abandoned.

We initially contacted the Animal Ambulance and were given the number of the Funny Farm which is in our village and it was they who eventually volunteered to take the dog in. I dropped the dog there the next day and was surprised that this was the same place which had attracted so much bad press in the papers last month.

Although the main aim of the people who run the sanctuary is to rescue retired horses, a good portion of the real estate was taken up by rescued dogs.

The place was clean and well kept. The sanctuary manager, Sue Arnett, together with another volunteer were there to greet the new stray and within the first five minutes they voiced their suspicions that this huge and magnificent creature had been abandoned probably because it needed treatment for sand fly. They confirmed they would be taking a blood sample to test for this disease and treat it.

I would like to invite anybody with enough energy and time to make criticisms and to use up valuable government resources such as sending animal welfare officers to such a place to be proactive instead. Let these same people use some of this energy to dig deep into their pockets and make donations - or even donate some of their time to help run such a busy enterprise which is done voluntarily by all concerned.

After all, had it not been for organisations such as the Funny Farm, my fellow compatriots would have nobody to clean up after their selfish ways. In addition, I would like to appeal to the government to demand tagging of such rare dogs when they are brought into our islands. In this way, anybody vain enough to require this kind of rare breed to be part of their household, must also be responsible for it and take care of it until the end of its days and not burden the rest of society once the fun has seeped out of caring for it.