I want to tell you a story

It all begins with Leonor and her personal crusade for the welfare of animals.

Since she was very young, she got herself implied in rescuing and caring for any animal that she found either abandoned or wounded or in poor condition.

She can communicate with them in a natural way. When she hears that an animal is in pain or defenceless, she just can’t go to sleep at night thinking of what she could do and she flies through the door when she receives a call informing that an animal is stranded and can be run over by a car. Yes, this is how she is.

Leonor got so dedicated to the cause of all those unwanted animals that she finally decided to move to a countryside house with her 5 horses, her goat, her ewe and her numerous dogs and cats.

Little by little, her friends and the people around her started to pay more attention to the animal world..

She expressed her thoughts in the following way: “There are shelters for dogs, cats and small animals but there is no existing shelter for those horses, donkeys and mules which are exploited until death, which are used by unmindful riders who receive trophies and prizes while their horses are young and healthy and then sell them to small undiscriminating riding schools once they are suffering from chronic injuries. In those places they work long hours with their saddles on all day long, with injuries under the girth and supporting on their back people who have no idea of riding a horse and who think of horses as motorcycles , not as of living creatures. They kick their bellies, they hit them to make them go faster and then pull their mouths as if they were using brakes. When those poor horses are not fit enough any more because of fatigue, pains and old age, they are left in small, dark, stinky stables with almost no food and with no possibility of going out, exercising or even seeing the sunlight. They are thus replaced by young ones, which can jump well and make their owners proud of themselves again.

These thoughts were haunting Leonor all the time and finally she convinced a few friends of hers to join their efforts and create an association to help horses.

In the meantime Leonor kept adopting all the abandoned hungry cats that she would spot on her way every time she drove to town and all kind of wounded animals. The first horses that were taken in by the association were driven to Leonor’s house which became thus “El Refugio”. It was very slow at first as the Spanish administration was difficult to work with and people in general had no idea that horses could need this kind of help (nobody had heard of abandoned horses before).

ADE had started… the first pony that arrived was Sandy. ADE members started collecting money to buy a group of starved donkeys from a neighbouring barn and sending lots of letters to explain their goals.

Money was scarce but expenses huge….

Two years later Fundación Altarriba (a well-known animal shelter) showed interest in having an equine department and Ade agreed to become part of it. They were a larger organisation with a lot of donors and above all they had a very well designed website known by a lot of animal lovers. Time passed, more letters were sent to more people and the number of complaints about ill-treated horses increased.

There was more and more work to do especially when the official administrations (to whom we had repeatedly asked for help) started to understand our needs and decreed horse seizures because of animal ill-treatment.

Leonor carried on her life in her “Castle” a millhouse, but from then on horses started to arrive there in groups of 6, 10, 14 or 27. They would stay with her until their wounds would have disappeared, they would have gained weight and their spirit would be strong again. It did not take long in Leonor´s hands, as she is a natural healer.

The time spent with the horses did not let her forget the sufferings of dozens of puppies, parrots, ferrets or kittens that people hide under a filthy cloth in cardboard boxes and leave at her doorway. She feels like crying every time, but she is a happy and strong person and always finds strength to take care of them all.