KAROO ANIMALS – Weekend Argus 05/05/07
THE Little Karoo, a couple of hours’ drive from Cape Town, attracts thousands of tourists who flock there for the wonderful mountain scenery and the serene atmosphere of the fruit and wine farms enfolded in its broad valleys. But a Barrydale woman found, away from the tourist routes, terrible suffering among farm and domestic animals. This is the unique and controversial way in which she dealt with it.
When Colette Teale drives her Karoo Animal Protection Society (KAPS) vehicle anywhere through the sprawling coloured settlements outside the towns of the Little Karoo, the dogs recognise it — and they come running. When she stops and gets out, they jump up to be petted and stroked. “Some of them want the food I usually bring, but what they really want is love and attention,” she says.
And when she walks into the living room of her farmhouse, 8km from Barrydale, she is greeted by barks and yelps of excitement. At any one time, up to 30 dogs could be sharing her home, all of them rescued from intolerably cruel situations on farms and in poverty-stricken settlements of the Little Karoo. As paid-up members of the family, they are learning to socialise with people and with other dogs. Once they show they are ready for it, they are rehomed. In the three months before our visit, Teale had rehomed 63 dogs.
