Countless of tourists come to Greece each year and go back home with holiday memories and a rescued stray. Julie Tsiakmakis who runs an animal rescue charity on Halkidiki in northern Greece says that in Greece strays are rife and unwanted litters are often dumped in the tourist areas where they’re likely to be fed. At the end of the season many of them are poisoned or rounded up and culled.

It was this practice that caused Ms. Tsiakmakis, who lived in South Shields before marrying a Greek husband, to create the Halkidiki Animal Rescue that is funded by public donations. She organizes the neutering of strays and helps tourists who want to transport strays back home.

Geraldine Caldwell, from Penarth, met an English settler when she was vacationing on Zakynthos.Knowing that winter means that the strays stop being fed by tourists and hotel workers she raised 250 pounds for the pooch that she called Lost to be transported to Britain. She already has a stray she met on Zante from a previous holiday.

Lost

Carol and Les Stones were just the latest foreign visitors to Greek islands that decided to pick up a stray dog, specifically a Golden retriever that they found stabbed and left for dead on Zakynthos. They organized an animal charity to arrange for the dog’s transport to Greater Manchester and adopted him. Now, the dog known as Chance has had his life changed forever.

Chance

The family had met the dog on the island and had come across him several times. They were devastated to leave the dog and return to England. Back home, they were unable to put him out of their mind and contacted the Holbrook Animal Rescue in Sussex to find the dog. They did so in a nick of time.

It was a similar story for Bolton estate agent Debbie Howarth from Sharples who found Martel, a pointer spaniel-cross abandoned on a beach. She arranged for him to be flown to the UK where he now enjoys life as a 17-week old canine who enjoys playing with the family’s other two dogs and who is pretty much a member of the family.