Year 2016 marked the collaboration with the German not-for-profit organization Tierhilfe Phoenix, which led to 6 abandoned dogs of Pico Island flying to Frankfurt and find a forever home!

Let’s start from the beginning. I am a volunteer for Acanil, the local association for the protection of abandoned dogs and, while helping out, I soon realised that the dog shelter needed additional plans to boost the number of adoptions.
Through my job (I own and run a whale watching company in Pico Island) I come into contact with many dog lovers from mainland Europe and talking to them the idea of finding an international partner association interested in adopting our dogs came into life.

Finding Tierhilfe Phoenix and getting ready to fly the first dogs took me over 1 year.

The project was ambitious, due to the complicated logistics of flying dogs from a little island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean to Germany, but we did it!

The support of both Helena Amaral, the President of Acanil and the vet Sally Lopes was essential.

A special thank also to Petra Winkelmann that sent us several kennels for flying out our dogs.

Enjoy the pictures of the happy dogs that left Pico to find a forever home in Germany and stay tuned on PicoDogs.org to know more on our future projects.