Chris and Sandra started the ALStrays Re-Homing project in 2009 when they were living in Spain.
Initially they helped the strays in Almerimar through the blog they had set up to document life in Spain (www.almerimarlife.com) – hence the ALStrays i.e. Almerimar Life Strays – and via a range of fund raising initiatives, which included Chris running a half marathon!
In 2010 they added pet transport to the project, initially to transport the re-homed cats to Germany, but once the 6 month quarantine had been lifted for pet transport to the UK, they added the UK (and dogs) to the portfolio.
The rest, as they say is history! From January 2010 until March 2019 when they left Spain and returned to live full time in the UK the project (and their own rescued pets) took up all of our time: during which Sands re-homed 1725 cats and Chris drove 750,655 miles delivering a total of 7595 cats (4023) and dogs (3572).
Having returned to the UK both the re-homing and pet transports had to change. Sands is still working with the Spanish rescues and Germany charity to re-home cats, but she no longer (obviously) has a hands on role in this. Chris no longer runs scheduled transports between Spain, Germany and the UK.
Sandra now works as a volunteer with Cats Protection as a Welfare Officer and Chris has set up a partnership with a number of transporters to be their UK recognised business partner for TRACES and the import of cats and dogs.