Oh Tang, bless you. At least you are willing to put some food and water out for those poor little mites. What a ruddy shame.

I hope someone falls in love and takes them in regardless of their history.

I totally agree. I couldn't even go on holiday to these countries because the only memories I would have would be sad one's and who needs to waste money on those sort of memories. Like you I would have to try and save them all.

I still have memories of a tiny little ginger and white kitten I saw in Greece 33 years ago. It was under a hedge, in the blazing heat, all alone and there was no water to be found anywhere so I couldn't even get it a drink. My domineering (now ex) husband wouldn't let me take it with us to try and get it help. The memories haunted me for ages.

Every fibre of your being wants to reach out and cuddle them! But the reality is that they are far safer being 'wary' of humans for the time being at least.

I only ever put out food for the cats by chucking it hard from the fourth floor verandah down into the gutter hitting the wheelies on the way so it 'clatters' and they come running from all over when they hear it but must assume it 'comes from the sky' lol! If they even ONCE see you put the food down for them - they will wait for you, howl and moan and draw attention to themselves and even follow your car up the road.

I do try to tell the well meaning holidaymakers armed with their boxes of Go Cat and china and glass bowls and putting it down where the cars come in and out of the carpark that they are not really helping. I go so far sometimes, (when I see some who have been doing it for weeks) as to ask them if they've wondered what will happen to these cats they've encouraged to the same spot for weeks when they go home? And I do tell some that their money spent on expensive food would have been better spent on getting just ONE of these cats neutered!

Still breaks my heart and has me in tears every time I see a dead kitten or a mother with a litter - and I do my bit both practically, with helping raise funds and with personal donations. But I am not daft enough to think I am making a different to the wider problem. It does however make a big difference, now and then, to the indiviual scrap of fur at the time.

I think you have to be able to harden your heart to be of practical help to abandoned and unwanted animals (as I did when I worked with children from families in crisis for years in the UK) it's not the sort of thing you can let your 'emotions rule' over. Although you need those emotions to make you even WANT to help in the first place.

On the plus side - being here - I have heard of and know of such touching tales of kindness to animals by those who do care. Most people are good - just those who aren't seem to loom larger when things go wrong.

I totally understand what you are saying Pat, no criticism intended. Like I said, EVEN if you did take them, what then, your rescues are at bursting point, and if they survive then maybe someone will take them under their wing, tip of a large iceberg as you say.

Well my point really - you saw the ONE kitten - there will be thousands. As for your second point - no one on EARTH would be able to stop me acquiring some water and going back to the spot to put it down for the animal. I could not live with myself if I didn't.

But then my last ex used to say I thought more of my dog than I did of him and he wasn't WRONG and I'd tell him so! That's why my dog was still around and living with me for years after I showed him the door!

Oh dear..I feel like I have had a slap on the wrist cos I am one of those holiday makers who feed the stray cats where ever I go I understand what you are saying though... I just trust that as I am sat on the plane home there is another plane load of people on their way out,some of whom who will carry on feeding them though I have often worried about how they survive in winter with fewer tourists.

Actually the RSPCA state they "rescued 130,695 animals"in 2012( the wikipedia site is out of date)

However they do kill quite a large proportion of healthy animals that they do not rehome for divers reasons, in fact around 50%

The rescue work is not done by the main RSPCA of course but by their franchised out"branches"

I'm not criticising. It's kind folk with kind hearts but, I doubt that they give these strays much thought once they've been home for a while. You raise a good point you see - life IS much harder for them in the winter (albeit a short winter) and no tourists to help out feeding them then and they've become lazy and even fat and expecting food at the bottom of every block or by every villa gate when there is no shortage really of food (mice, rats insects, etc) to be had if they had to hunt for it. We could do with more cats getting down to behaving like cats and catching the rats lol!

I do sometimes criticise quite loudly. When dork tourists put down bags of chips for the cats or other stuff in large quantities that will invariably give them the severe squits or even kill the kittens.

The people who make it their business to care for 'colonies' here do it in safe places away from the madding crowds they have a neutering programme and they feed stuff like pasta to bulk out. And they arrange for others to take over in their absence.

We even have a beach that has always been called 'the cat beach' because of the large number of cats down there. It is being redeveloped and those who care for the cats there are at the moment very busy relocating this colony of cats to a safer place.

As I said before - where you see a lot of poor treatment of animals you also will see a lot of heartwarming GOOD stuff too - because it is so badly needed.

I am sure NorthernSoulGirl in Spain would agree with this - and she is one of the souls who DOES make a difference. Far better really to be helping out where the need is greatest and more obvious and in your face and also do your bit to try to slowly educate the natives about responsible pet ownership.

The UK is, in general, streets ahead in the thinking. But they still have organised dog fighting going on. Badger baiting, all sorts - I don't read about 'horse slashing' going on here - used to when living in Cornwall though.

From a recent report on the alarming current rise in animal cruelty in the UK

Might not see any of this outside your front door but it is going on and going on daily.

Yes I know there will be thousands and that is what is so sad. I mentioned that fact in an earlier post.

About the kitten - the fact is we had got a bus to somewhere (can't remember where we were supposed to be going to or back from) and had got off at the wrong stop, in the middle of nowhere, not a house in sight, found a bus stop but no more buses due until the next day and we had to trek for miles to eventually get to somewhere that we could call a taxi from to get back to the hotel. There was absolutely no way I could have ever found that road again never mind the kitten, miles and miles of hedgerow, fields and never ending winding road, all looking the same. Didn't even know where the hell we were! If I could have gone back and found it do you not think I would have?

I pick up worms from hot paths and throw them onto soil, move them away from my spade if I'm digging,
rescue butterflies from spiders webs, have taken numerous injured birds and wildlife to the vets, avoid standing on insects, don't even kill wasps and flies,just catch them and put them outside. Whenever there is a young bird in my garden I put up temporary plastic fencing around the shrubs where they hide so the cats can't get to them and lean rows of roof tiles against the fence so they a safe place to go away from the cats and out of the rain.Realised one Christmas eve over 15 years ago that animals that aren't thought of as pets suffer and feel fear and pain exactly the same as those that we choose to love and have in our homes and have never since put a piece of their flesh in my mouth. So please don't make me feel any worse than I did about not being able to do anything for that kitten. Maybe your husband was a lot more mild tempered than mine and you weren't afraid of him. I still have an indentation in the side of my shin bone from when he kicked me one day because he didn't like something I said. That was over 30 years ago and it is still painful if press on it.

I often read and think far too much about all the cruel and callous things that we as a species do to other innocent creatures who share this planet (not our planet) and it breaks my heart so much that I can't help them all. And it actually gets so bad sometimes that I feel like I don't want to continue living in this cruel and selfish world having to know about the suffering we cause them because it hurts so much. Unfortunately I'm not one of the many who can turn a blind eye and pretend it doesn't exist. I wish I was because I'd have a much happier life.

I don't wish to get into a slanging match or argument about RSPCA (there are enough of those on here - and I like ANY organisation that tries to help in ANY way more than I like people who abuse animals - and RSPCA has 'clout' others don't) - I mentioned them as just ONE organisation in relation to figures relating to animal cruelty in the UK. Anyone can google animal cruelty in the UK and see that it is far from free of it!

Who it is that 'rescues' or 'prosecutes' doesn't make any difference to the reality of the CRUELTY and ABUSE happening in the first place does it? I am answering in general terms to those who say they 'couldn't live anywhere' that they were aware of animal cruelty. All I'm saying is, if you live in the UK you alreay live somewhere that there is animal cruelty and a lot more individual cases (numbers) than there are in a tiny country like this. Lot more animal cruelty related to food production too.

Here you go - 14 pages chronicling some of the worst cases of cruelty in the UK from just last year - graphic content warning - all I'm saying is it is naive or disingenuous to claim that you 'couldn't live anywhere' where animal cruelty is present if you live in the UK - you already do live somewhere like that! You just don't see so many living on the streets. But a lot of street dogs have better lives than those who are kept captive and systematically tortured or starved (out of sight of the eyes of the public)

Animal cruelty stories by county
http://www.rspca.org.uk/in-action/wh...ecution/report

What you say about the RSPCA putting down unwanted animals only further proves my point really - that it is not just in what are deemed 'more backward' and 'less progressive' countries that there are problems. If there was no animal neglect there wouldn't be so many animals 'eligible' for euthanising would there?

Here in Cyprus, if I phoned the authorities and these two were taken to the pound or one of the shelters that did have some room - they'd be given shelter, food and water but, if not claimed or rehomed, would be PTS in about a week from arriving there.