British tourist pays £3,000 to bring stray dog home from Mauritius

stock photo, PA

A British holidaymaker with a big heart has spent £3,000 - the last of her savings - to bring a stray dog home from her holiday in Mauritius.

Karen Garner, from Hopeman in Scotland, first saw the thin dog, who she has called Jean Paul, from her hotel balcony and started feeding him chicken and sausages.

According to the Daily Mail, she said: "He slept on the beach all day and a security guard said he had been there since he was a pup, so we reckon he is just under one-year old."

After deciding on the second day of her holiday that she wanted to save Jean Paul, Karen drove him to an animal welfare centre and paid to leave him there.

The dog will be vaccinated before being quarantined for six months and then flown to the UK.

Karen says she spent the whole holiday "running around trying to save this dog", adding: "If I hadn't done this then I think he would have died."

And it's not the first time Karen has come to the rescue; 18 months ago she rescued a stray cat she found on holiday in Cyprus, at a cost of £2,000.

But Karen is not the first British animal lover to get a serious case of puppy love; back in November 2011, Paul Booth, 43, and wife Lorraine, 36, from Bristol, paid £2,000 on treatments for a stray pooch - and a ticket to get her back to the UK.

They met the black Labrador cross while staying in a beach hut at the upmarket Cocobay resort in Antigua in January this year.

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