Sid all set for a better life

AN URGENT appeal by the Cyprus Mail to find a temporary foster home for a stray dog has led to it being given the chance of a new life in Britain.

Until yesterday, Sid, a lovable beige male poodle, was living in a corn field next to a busy highway near Paralimni. But now, he has moved into a temporary home near Ayia Napa and will be jetting off for to live with an English couple early next year.

Celia Shayler from Helping Hands, a local organistation that highlighted the Sid’s dilemma, is relieved that his future is now secure. “Once Sid’s plight was published in the Cyprus Mail, I had calls from all over Cyprus and even one from Spain offering to help, if we could not have found a foster home it could have been the end of any chance of Sid going to England,” she said.

The couple who will give Sid a home in the UK are overwhelmed at the public response to the appeal for a foster home. “They are in touch all the time and are absolutely overjoyed. They will be coming over in October when they will see Sid,” Shayler added.

Sid has to stay in Cyprus because of the lengthy pet passport procedure and can only be taken to England by his new family once the procedure has been completed.

The pet passport scheme, which was introduced in 2001, has been welcomed by many dog and cat owners in Europe, but is often criticised for being a long and laborious process.

Dogs must be microchiped for proper identification, receive vaccination against rabies, take several blood tests to make sure that the vaccine has given it a satisfactory level of rabies protection and also have tick and tapeworm treatment.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.