Becoming part of The Frankie Foundation’s new Adoption Team is a great way to start the new year and help our four-legged friends.
Great work takes place in public and private shelters throughout the Algarve, helping to make this world a better place for our feline and canine friends. The team at Animal Rescue Algarve (ARA) are busy in local schools educating young children about the importance of animal care and there are numerous agencies dedicated to sterilising animals and helping stem the tide of dogs and cats being sent to shelters.
Despite everyone’s best efforts, many shelters are often inundated with dogs (and cats), who can remain there for months and, in some cases, even years. To help tackle this problem, a new ‘Adoption Team’ initiative led by The Frankie Foundation is being launched this month.
As Neil explained, “The intention is to create a dedicated group of people with the skills and knowledge to find permanent loving homes for dogs currently residing in shelters. By becoming part of the team, people will learn new skills, both in terms of the handling of dogs and the use of social media. We’re also committed to making it an enjoyable experience for everyone involved.”
The Frankie Foundation has developed an ‘eight-step plan’ explaining exactly what’s involved:
- Commit in your own mind to helping shelter animals to find new homes
- Attend the ‘shelter dog training’ course provided by @the_dog_dominator
- Contact local shelters and agree on the dogs you’ll work to find homes for
- Launch your very own Adoption Team social media page(s)
- Wherever possible, exercise your dogs in public areas (wearing your Adoption Team T-shirt) to ‘showcase’ them
- Show your social media followers your progress by publishing videos and photographs
- Seek suitable homes from your social media network
- Repeat!
In terms of the training course, which will take place on a Monday or Thursday in Tavira, it will help team members to learn the fundamentals of training and calming dogs who find themselves in shelters, some of whom may not be used to interacting with other dogs or people, and might be shy and even scared. There will be one-hour group training sessions for eight weeks. The cost is just 50 euros and, at the end, a certificate of completion will be presented by dog trainer Nuno Nunes.
If you’d like to help rehome animals in need by training them, creating your social media pages to aid their adoption, and being part of a dedicated team, please check out The Frankie Foundation website (details below). It’s a great way to start the new year and help our four-legged friends.
The Frankie Foundation has led and supported numerous initiatives, working particularly closely with dog trainer Nuno Nunes of Incríveis Tavira. They’ve paid for the training of dogs to help them become calmer and, therefore, more suitable for adoption, and have used social media to highlight current issues and to share good practices. Neil and Elisabeth also paid for the sterilisation and feeding of dogs and cats, funding much of this work themselves by donating 20% of sales from their animal print polo shirt range to The Frankie Foundation.
frankiefoundationalgarve@gmail.com
The Frankie Foundation
In late 2018, while wintering in Tavira, Neil Webb and Elisabeth Esterl adopted a lovable rescue kitten whom they named Frankie (main photo) and he quickly became a much-loved family member. Tragically, at the age of only three, Frankie was killed in a road accident. Neil and Elisabeth were heartbroken. Determined to provide Frankie with a lasting legacy and create something positive from such a dreadful event, they founded The Frankie Foundation.
