Among them is Julie Bailey who is on a mission to take a stray, now named Dolly, back to England after she and other guests at Grand Pineapple, saved the dog from being killed by what she describes as heartless locals.
“One morning, my friend Mary who just got back to island, she saw this guy trying to drown the dog. It was horrendous. The dog kept swimming in the sea to get away from what was happening. What they would do is when the dog would swim around to get away from them, he would try to come back in, but they would run up and down the beach backwards and forwards, so the dog couldn’t come back in again and one day they did that for an hour.”
Bailey returned to Antigua last Saturday because on her first trip last year, she broke her foot two days into the holiday and did not enjoy the vacation.
She says the incident this week with Dolly has ruined her holiday.
“We’ve started this facebook page called “Bring Dolly Home’ and people are already coming up with stories about other dogs that have been beaten and I’ve got friends that hav been on my page and they already saying to me well they lost me as a tourist because there is no way I’m going there and what really makes me so cross is that so many of the locals are very religious. So, I always say to them, you go to church, you go about praising God and animals are dumb and their God’s creatures but what I’m seeing here is this is pretty commonplace. I don’t know if I will ever return.”
Dolly is now at PAAWS, the animal shelter in Parham.
Bailey says she wants to take Dolly to England and is hoping for financial assistance in getting her there.
“We will give her a home and when she gets home back to England, she will get another dog because we have another. She will have the happiest laugh ever. You know she will be loved. She will have two walks a day because we live in the country. She will have a big roaring fire to lie beside in the evening and the woods, a lot of little squirrels and things to chase after. A good ole dog’s life really.”
Apart from airing her disgust on social media, Julie Bailey also submitted a letter to Observer Media, as too did Lisa King.
King says cruel treatment of Dolly has affected several people and ruined many holidays, including hers.
The visitor has advised residents to become educated on animals before their attitude seriously affects the tourism industry.
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