I don’t know too much about the organisation yet, but it seems to have been developed from/by Petsworld Dog Hotel where the owner, Marisa Traen and her team have been looking after abandoned animals in addition to running the boarding kennels that she opened early in 2001.

Since then, it would appear that together they have cared for over 200 abandoned and rescued dogs and now La Esperanza Del Sur has become a non-profit registered charity here in Tenerife.

Most of the rescue dogs they have, but not all, are Podencos (Hunting) dogs.  If you have a look at the section “Our Dogs” on their website you can read about the dogs, how and where they were found.

Please visit their website for La Esperanza Del Sur to learn more about what they have been doing and how you can help them to continue with this fantastic work.

They are part of the way there, due to several generous benefactors, but construction costs will not be small, so there needs to be a fund raising initiative too.

How affordable is this then?  Could you, buy a square metre of land for Live Arico?  Well yes you can, at just €5 per square metre!

For this you will receive a certificate from Live Arico confirming your purchase and once the centre is completed your name and the number of square metres that you bought will be included on a “Roll of Honour” in the welcome centre at the new refuge.

This sounds like a fantastic initiative and should be affordable for most of us animal lovers.  For more information and to find out how you can make your purchase please call Debbie Gibson (on +34 637 918 158) or Suzy Q (on +34 629 388 102) as soon as you can or if you are in the UK and would prefer not to phone an overseas number, let me know and I will make sure the message is passed straight to them.

How long have you lived in Tenerife?

I have been living in Tenerife for 2 and half years now with my husband and pooch.  I used to live on the South coast near Brighton and worked as a freelance photographer and had exhibitions of my digital art work.

Where do you call home, here or where you were born and why?

That’s a difficult question to answer, even though I can’t really imagine moving back to England I can’t really say Tenerife feels quite like home yet, maybe when my Spanish has improved and I have lived here a bit longer then I can say its truly home.

Now that you live on a Holiday Island, what is your favourite Holiday destination?

I haven’t been off the Island since I got here.  I suppose when I do go on holiday it would be nice to go somewhere with green fields and probably cooler, I would say the UK would be my favourite destination.

Describe your best memory since living in Tenerife

This has to be collecting our pooch, Basil from the airport two weeks after we had just moved out here.  It meant that we had finally done it we were now all living in Tenerife – me, my husband and Basil our pooch (Read Basil’s Story of his arrival to Tenerife).

What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?  (keep it clean)

Windsurfing, that was one of the reasons we had chosen to live in El Medano as it is very windy, as well of course as it is a very cool place to live!

I now run a site for the rescue doggies of Tenerife which I set up to provide useful information about all things doggie on the island.

We also enjoy walking in the forests in the North of Tenerife it’s a nice change to see some trees when you live on the coast.

Taking photographs and painting murals on the walls of my garden.

Which is your favourite Tourist Attraction?

My favourite tourist attraction are the forests here they are quite incredible.

I also really liked Loro Parque, even though I don’t normally like animal parks because of the way they keep the animals cooped up.  But the animals performing actually look as if they are also having fun.

Where would you say was the best place to eat and/or drink in Tenerife?

So many great places to eat or drink here hard to say, here are a few that I like:

Flash Point El Medano to have a coffee (great coffee) and a good place to hang out when you are deciding what sail to rig up as the cafe it’s just in front of where all the windsurfers launch.

Vertudes in San Isidro traditional Canarian cafe restaurant you can have fish or meat, food is simple though good and it’s inexpensive.

Encuentro, cabezo, near Cabezo Surf shop

What has been your biggest challenge since you arrived on the Island?

Learning the language which is an ongoing task!

Is there something that you would really like to achieve within the next 5 years?

I would like to be still running the Tenerife Dogs site and helping the rescue shelters here, in whatever way I can.

Having a digital art exhibition of combined work, surf/beach images and of course dog images.  I have to find the right venue though, but that is my plan, and producing a dog calendar.

Tell us something that few people will know about you

I suffer from vertigo, not great when you move to a country that involves going up hill a lot of the time!

Wow, how do you fit all that in to each day, Nikki?  It’s great to see that you are settled in Tenerife and that you are able to help the various Rescue Centres with your fantastic Tenerife Dogs Blog.  People, if you haven’t had a look at it yet, give it a try now and sign up to keep up to date with everything that is going on!

Maybe we will be able to persuade Nikki to prepare an article on Wind Surfing for the New Year …

Speaking of which, how will you be celebrating tonight?  Don’t forget to let us know and maybe send a few photos through to us, we could have a New Year in Tenerife Gallery!