Regretably, we are currently closed to new admissions. Whilst Dave's treatment was successful he continues to experience complications following his surgery which mean he is not physically up to the stresses and strains of running a rescue. Added to that as public sector workers both our jobs are currently under threat which means we are unable to support STAR financially as we have done to date. So, at the moment, we are providing permanent sanctuary to a small number of animals, around 30, concentrating on animals which would otherwise struggle to find homes. You can meet these animals on our personal webpage Sprogpages. In addition we are contnuing to help animals in whatever other ways we can such as homechecking, transporting and a couple of web based projects. Of course, we continue to offer lifetime back up for any animals homed through STAR. We do hope that things might improve in the future, enabling us to return to rescuing and rehoming, and if and when that day comes we'll annouce it here.

Some of you might already be aware that, as a teenager, Dave had and was treated for cancer. He has had to go for regular check ups since then and, at his most recent, was given a CT scan. This revealed a growth and today it has been confirmed as a cancerous lymph gland related to his original cancer.

As you can imagine a second diagnosis of cancer is a pretty scary thing for us both. The good news is that it appears to be slow growing and contained in this one gland. The doctors seem confident that surgery alone will be enough to remove it and Dave won't have to go through more chemotherapy. However, the operation is fairly major and will require a weeks stay in hospital as well as a recovery time of around 6 weeks.

I'm sure you all know by now how important STAR is to us but at the moment our first priority has to be Dave. Without Dave there is no STAR so we must take time away for him to get better.

So we must now be absolutely closed to new admissions with no exceptions. This does NOT include animals homed by STAR who need to be returned, we will absolutely always be there for them no matter what but we cannot take on any new animals for now. There are still about 60 animals here so they are more than enough to keep us busy in the meantime.

This is a temporary thing but I suspect it's likely to last for the rest of 2009 realistically. I'll try to keep you updated on humans and animals here in the meantime via the blog.

Much love

Sarah & Dave