Los mañicos

I'm Sonia, founder of VeggieAnimals and I'm here to tell you about our precious godchildren, "the precious godchildren, "the mañicos".

Many of you will already know them, they have been part of our family since the 24th of December 2017 and we've been talking from time to time about how wonderful they are talking about how wonderful they are.

How did this story begin? The attempt of a study to compare the faeces of cats fed on vegetable feed vs. fed their usual food.

It all started a few months before Christmas Eve. We set out to carry out a study with kittens in which we were going to analyse their faeces.

Why? Because we think it's important to have studies on plant food, obviously studies that don't harm the animals at all.

There are few studies, and not surprisingly. Normally the organisations that carry out these studies do not have the same view that we vegans have of them, and the proposals involve mistreatment, slaughtering, buying animals, etc.

The study was not carried out, our first proposal was to donate a significant amount of fodder to the kennel and collect the faeces there. On day 1 of the study, a blood test was carried out, for 30 days the faeces were collected and analysed daily, and on day 30 a new blood test was carried out. One group ate VeggieAnimals and the other group ate their usual food. The end. That's all there was to it.

The ethics committee did not approve the proposal because abandoned animals do not have a guardian and it was considered abuse. And, according to them, we were bordering on abuse by taking blood twice in a month. Anyway. One proposal was to buy 14 cats and put them in cages for 30 days to carry out the study. Obviously, this was not done and, frankly, we did not want to propose anything again.

What happened to VeggieAnimals feed?

The feed was also donated to the kennel, with whom we had already established close ties. We sent 2 whole pallets of feed, 90 bags of 12.5kg with giant ribbons.

I remember talking to Maria, a vet at VeggieAnimals and co-founder of La Vida Color Frambuesa. She told me "we can't leave them there". And that's how it was. We couldn't get them out of our minds. So the second proposal was to build a space for the 14 cats at La Vida Color Frambuesa, which in principle would be an infirmary to be able to carry out the study we had in mind and to collect their faeces there, and from there to look for families for them.

A journey with 14 cats.

On 24 December we set off on a 4-hour journey with 14 cats in a van. I still don't understand how they spent the whole trip in absolute silence.

They were young but already adult cats, who had been in the kennel all their lives. They were those cats that nobody wants, the ones that never get adopted, cats that the more time they spend in the kennel, the less likely they are to get out.

That day they were all leaving together for the best home on the planet, with a whole life ahead of them. When we arrived at the sanctuary, Maria and Alber were waiting for us, with all the excitement in the world.

They arrived in shattered health, in fact Alfonso collapsed shortly after arriving, unable to breathe. It was months and months of diarrhoea, ear mites, rhinitis, bloody footprints from crystals, they even had ringworm! But they recovered thanks to the care and love of their new family.

After so many months, already adapted to their home and with the bonds created between them and their carers, it was much more difficult to find a family for them, except for Lina, she didn't like cats and she immediately got the best home, where she has a little brother dog.

Maria and Alber decided to adopt them! It was very emotional.

We, VeggieAnimals, have been providing them and the rest of the cats at La Vida Color Frambuesa with food ever since, but it is Maria and Alber who do all the hard work. Besides giving them all the love in the world and offering them a safe home adapted to their needs, they cover all the veterinary expenses, litter and so on, making a great effort.

Over the next few months we will be talking to you about each of them individually.

Sad for the mañicos who have been saying goodbye to us.

These days we are very sad because Cris has left us, suddenly. Once again, Maria and Alber, thank you for adopting them and making them live full and happy lives. Lots of strength to overcome this moment.

But Cris is not the only one who has left us, in these years Pilar, Trini, Cris and Manoli have also died.

Alfonso, Anita, Camel, Fina, Leia, Luisa, Luke, Jeti and Lori are still at the shelter. It has been almost 7 years since that Christmas Eve and they are now geriatric animals, but they are happy, each with their own ailments and their own things.

This kind of action is possible thanks to you, by supporting us with your orders.

Hopefully we can continue helping the animals for many more years (this year we are already 10!).

SEE PHOTO GALLERY OF THE MAÑICOS ON OUR FACEBOOK PAGE