My Nonprofit Reviews

I befriended a retired search dog at the British Embassy, Baghdad, her name is Simca and this is her story.

She is a beautiful Belgian Malinois, 12 years old, and had worked her entire life up until she was 10, protecting the lives of the people that lived and worked at the Embassy by searching vehicles entering the Embassy for explosives.

She had been retired for nearly two years and had been locked away in her kennel, only allowed out twice a day for about 15 minutes a time to relieve herself before being locked back up. She had no bedding, as she used to chew her blankets through absolute boredom, so the handlers took it away from her, all she had was a cold, concrete floor.

When I found out she was there I asked if I could spend time with her and was allowed to walk Simca and play with her and I soon fell in love with her. At first she had no idea what to do on walks as she had never been on one, she just stood there looking around, but she soon started behaving like a dog, enjoying affection and chasing tennis balls, she had such a nice temperament and she soon became a local celebrity around the compound, with lads fussing over her all day.

However after about 6 weeks as was told I was no longer allowed to take her from the kennels as the handlers were worried about her biting someone, it was nonsense, I felt hopeless, I knew how much she hated the kennels, you could see it so clearly in her face and body language that it used to break my heart taking her back at night, and to think now she was going to be in there until she was put down was heart breaking.

I looked into ways of getting her home to the UK so she could enjoy her last few years as a normal dog, but everywhere I looked I hit problems. I had spent months trying to figure a way to do this and was at my whit's end when miraculously someone gave me SPAC Internationals website address. I sent them a message immediately and Lori got back to within the hour, I think it was as soon as she got into work to be honest.

She had already arranged for two dogs from the US Embassy to be transported up to Erbil the very next morning and asked if I could get Simca to go with them, without even knowing the story behind Simca she was ready to help me. Unfortunately I was unable to get clearance from the company that officially owned her to let her go, despite them agreeing to me taking ownership of her.

So then Lori went out of her way to put me in touch with a gentleman at the US Embassy and he kindly donated a dog crate he had spare so Simca could be transported, and she gave me the details of the company that could get her out of Baghdad and up to Erbil so she could fly home.

We arranged the transport and then SPAC International found her a wonderful foster family for her to live with while they sorted out all the flight details. They arranged everything and paid for her flight to the UK, where she is now relaxing in a lovely kennel, getting fussed over regularly while she waits for her quarantine period to finish, then she will be taken back to my home where she can lie on the grass in the sun and play with the other dogs, all the things that normal dogs take for granted and that Simca has never experienced in her 12 years of life.

I owe SPAC International everything, more than I could ever repay them, because it wasn't only their financial assistance that made this possible, but their unwavering support and eagerness to help me and all the hard work they did organising the whole evolution. They made the impossible, possible. They are absolute diamonds each and everyone of them and I cant thank them enough. If you need help rehoming a dog these are the people to help you.

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