Homeless dogs’ home fights for compensation

Dingo Dogs owner Phil Nelson at his since-demolished home.

DOGS’ home owner Phil Nelson has vowed to take legal action following his eviction from his Dingo Dogs animal sanctuary in August.

by James Tweedie

Indian-born Mr Nelson, along with former girlfriend and Dingo Dogs treasurer Leigh Crouch were left homeless by the court-ordered eviction and have been sharing a small hut in the mountains near Las Chafiras with ten dogs and three cats ever since.

Mr Nelson’s dispute with his former landlord began in September 2004, after he officially registered his rented hillside finca as an animal sanctuary.

It was a requirement of his registration that he keep proper financial records, including receipts for payment of rent.

Mr Nelson says that despite having a rental contract and paying his rent “as regular as clockwork” for years, his landlord never gave him a receipt even after he began asking for one every month in 2004.

In May 2005, after his landlord had refused this request for an eighth consecutive month, Mr Nelson refused to pay rent until he began receiving said receipts.

The next day, Mr Nelson says, his water supply was cut off and the following day his dogs started dying mysteriously.

Mr Nelson says that he has letters from his vet stating that the dogs were poisoned, and that he had made a charge against his landlord to the Guardia Civil.

The landlord, however, took his own legal action against Mr Nelson and won a court order for his eviction.
Mr Nelson insists that he received “no notification at all” from Guia de Isora town hall before they evicted him and his dogs from the finca and bulldozed his self-built house and kennels a week later.

Mr Nelson’s 65 dogs were driven 7km in the back of a lorry to temporary accommodation in a goat pen, which he says was completely unsuitable.

The pen had to be cleared of rubbish before the dogs could be housed there. Many of them were put into one small room. Once shut in together they began fighting and two of the smaller dogs were killed.

The surviving dogs are now housed in different sanctuaries all over the island. Mr Nelson expressed his gratitude to all the people who had helped him.

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