A north-east playwright is encouraging dog lovers across Scotland to spend their holidays helping hundreds of homeless hounds in Portugal.
Mike Gibb, who founded north-east re-homing charity Dawgs in 1993, was on holiday in Portugal when he discovered Bianca Associacao, a sanctuary fore stray canines south of Lisbon.
Its centre was overflowing with neglected and abandoned animals, chained up in the burning sun.
He was so horrified by the conditions he saw that when he got home to Aberdeen the playwright started up his second charity, Friends of Bianca, to help make stays at the Portuguese pound as comfortable as possible for the downtrodden dogs.
Now three years on Mr Gibb, whose stage credits include Mother of All the Peoples, Clarinda and Lest We Forget, has managed to improve conditions at Bianca considerably.
He said: “When I first found the shelter, it was just a seventy-metre (230ft) long wire mesh fence around dogs chained up to little wooden things and tiny bits of tarp hoisted up to keep the sun off them.
“So the first thing we did was to build a proper wall right round it, and from there we’ve managed to build proper kenneling for most of the roughly 300 dogs there, giving them roofs to shield them from the sun, it gets really far too hot for them over there during the day.
“All over the place there’s major building going on, and as a result we’ve reduced it so far from 150 dogs on chains to just 40, and we’re hoping by the end of summer to have every dog off the chains.
“All the charity can afford is four kennel maids to care all day for the 300 dogs, so that’s one staff member for every 75 dogs.
“So we’ve set up a scheme called Holiday and Help, where you can go and volunteer and live at the shelter, it’s dead cheap.
“There’s Easyjet flights three times a week to Lisbon, and you can stay at the accommodation at the shelter for £25 a night for as long as you want.
“You don’t need to have any veterinary experience, all you need to have is a love for dogs and be willing to help the kennel maids.
“And at the end of the day, you’re never more than a 15-minute bus journey from Sesimbra beach.”
To find out more, e-mail info@friendsofbianca.org.