Promoting welfare of dogs in rural South Africa

Our dog sterilization project has slowed down a little bit, ( since Mandela Day, when we ran the sterilization campaign and managed to sterilize 20 dogs at the Nourish eco village, lots of state vet support, volunteers and of course dogs!) Now we are working to raise the funds for our backlog of female dogs... this is financially, logistically and time-wise more expensive, as we can collect 2 dogs, and take them to the veterinary clinic in a neighboring village, minimum half hour drive away.. we then need to drive again later to fetch the dogs after a full day.  Whilst the male dogs could be sterilized during campaigns and in the field, due to a female dogs sterilization being more internatl and thus more invasive, sanitary surgical surroundings are a must, so all female dogs must be done in the clinic theatre. But its so worth it- for every female we sterilize we hugely reduce the number of unwanted and unafforded puppies, and thus reduce puppy mortality rates, so we know its a worthy battle and just to keep pushing. 

Despite the slow progress, we have sterilized 90 dogs so far in our community, and successfully treated and cured 14 cases of TVT ( sexually transmitted cancer) we are also seeing the standard of health and welfare in the dogs in the village improving, through our steady dip and deworm program as well as owners understanding how to take better care of their pets. This education process is a big part of the importance of the work we do! Even just seeing the behaviour change in the children at Nourish, has been special.... nowdays one can find a child, who was previously scared of dogs, stroking our adopted dogs at their own free-will. This animal kindness and behaviour change, is a big ripple effect... so despite us feeling we are achieving a mere drop in the bucket, seeing these ripples makes us realise its all worthwhile.

thank you as always to our local partners African Dream and HALO, as well as all the funders that keep making our education, outreach and sterilization work a possibility.