Lucy Irvine Foundation Europe

Sophie, a valued volunteer, is back with another round up of some of the activities which took place at LIFE this past week. Enjoy!  Lucy Irvine. This week started with Lucy dropping in to visit Kirichko in equine hospital. For those of you who may not be familiar with Kirichko's story, here's a little background. Lucy was alerted to Kirichko's case by a man from whom LIFE had rescued a horse before.  Dear Kirichko The man said that the mother mare had kicked the foal and that he would sell it for Christmas foal meat unless, by chance, LIFE wanted it instead? Lucy went to his yard and guessed at once that this was not a kick. The baby was born like that - it's a known condition, basically a severe case of knock knees (carpal valgus). Lucy took a photo and sent it to the vet who confirmed her suspicion, and funds were raised so that Kirichko could be brought to LIFE, ensuring that he didn't end up on a dinner table. Kirichko has now had corrective surgery on both fro...

Sophie Roberts, a key behind the scenes volunteer and valued member of the LIFE team, has put together this brief round up of just a few of the activities and events which took place at LIFE this past week. Enjoy! Lucy Irvine Both these cats, plus another two - one who was unfortunately shot and another for a neuter operation -  needed visits to the vet this week. Nigel on the left here is being treated for ear mange while Behemoth, on the right, has several problems. Lucy noticed that his fur was falling out and that he had mouth problems and issues with his waterworks, the poor old warrior! He gave the vet an awful time, then escaped from his crate when Ilia brought him home. But, once the hectic day was over and things quietened down at Lucy's home site, Behemoth came back to her and settled down for the night :) Lucy will be updating us on the cat who got shot this coming week.   This week LIFE took delivery of another bulk order of dog food.  The team on the gro...

We thought we'd post this article written by Lucy about Amber, LIFE's first rescued foal, who after such a terrible start in life,  has now grown into such a splendid horse.  Read her story here: My mission that day was to treat dogs in a rough Roma area against ticks and fleas. To this end, I was walking between mud-brick hovels, followed by a mob of barefooted children dragging dogs on leads made from string. I’d already treated several puppies and had stopped to remove a wire collar cutting into the neck of another, when a shout made me look up. Yanko, a man whose stallion I wormed last year, wanted me to look at his mare. He said she needed an injection because she’d had a foal he must ‘throw away’. I finished fastening a donated collar onto the puppy and told its five year old owner to loosen it as the puppy grew. LIFE has seen deaths due to throats severed by string or wire collars on older dogs.    Yanko showed me his mare, who, tied to the cart she pulled, wa...

 A very warm welcome to our blog!  If you happened to have stumbled across this blog and more specifically, this post, let us introduce ourselves and what we do. The Lucy Irvine Foundation (LIFE) is a non-profit organisation actively reducing the suffering of dogs, cats and horses in rural Bulgaria, where we aim to transform the lives of these animals.  Headed up by Lucy Irvine, author of the best selling book Castaway, we reach the animals that need our help through daily outreach work , rescue and education . We don't receive grants for our work, and so rely completely on the generosity of kind donors to run every aspect of the Foundation, including covering our local staff's wages.  Behind the scenes, we have an international volunteer team to help consolidate, continue and expand Lucy Irvine’s already ongoing projects to help animals and their owners, in some of the poorer areas of rural Bulgaria.  Which is how this blog began :) Lucy with Custard Cream, o...