Help us care for 900 street rescues at our refuge

Hallo everyone. I hope the heatwaves that have been travelling round the globe have not affected any of you too adversely. It has been hot in Morocco (of course) and we are dealing with it the best we can.

So, what has been happening in the three months just past?

First of all, we got our new vehicle. It has made a huge difference to daily life at the refuge and we are so grateful to everyone who supported us by donating to the car fund and especially to Zach Skow, Matti Leshem and SPCA international who boosted our fundraising.

We have had a lot of adopters in the last few months. This means a lot of work preparing the dogs and making sure all the paperwork is completed correctly. But the work is so worth it for every dog that finds their own special place and people.

In May, Michele (along with Sally from SFT) met with officials from the Moroccan Football federation. They have been lobbied about the culling of dogs in Morocco and wanted to find out what it was all about. Michele explained about the gap between the government TNVR intentions and what was being implemented in different areas of Morocco. They had a lot of questions, and we hope that we were able to explain why TNVR was so important not only for the dogs but for the health of the whole community.

In the meantime, we have been continuing our own TNVR campaign. Along with the dogs rescued and taken into our refuges we have neutered and vaccinated and returned to the beaches along the coast and the streets of Agadir over 20 dogs that are being looked after by local people.

We had a very successful Web Action, and thanks to your support we received 3000 kg of cat food. This will keep the cats well fed for around 3 months and lifts a huge burden from us. Thank you everyone who clicked and shared (again and again) and donated.

In early May, we welcomed a group of French veterinarians and veterinary students to the farm on two occasions Supervised by Typhaine, a veterinarian at the prestigious Maison Alfort Veterinary School, they were able to tour the farm and see our animals.

We accompanied them to the municipal hygiene office where they met with the Vice President of Agadir, who is responsible for stray animal management. They were then able to visit the large inter-municipal pound, which is currently under construction. This large pound will be operational, in principle, by the end of the summer.

At the Farm Refuge we completed some more enclosures. This gave space for some older dogs to come from Shems and for us to welcome some more dogs from another refuge. We are also in the process of reopening Clebs refuge so that we have space for dogs that we rescue from the city dog pound and other situations.

We don’t have any further information on the situation at MAA but we are hoping to report back on that soon

You may have noticed that we have been working hard to improve the experience of the lovely people who sponsor animals with us. Sponsoring an animal is a great help, not just to the animal sponsored but to all the animals in our care. It is a steady monthly income which allows us to order food with the confidence that we can pay the bill when it arrives and keep going with routine veterinary treatments.

We have 194 individual sponsors who between them are sponsoring over 170 dogs, over 40 cats and 6 equines. Our sponsors are in the United States, United Kingdom and Germany, Canada, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Morocco, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Austria, Czechia, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Sweden, Australia, Brunei and New Zealand.

Kirsten, Azzedine and Hocine are looking at ways to improve the way we keep in contact with our sponsors and reviewing our current sponsorships, ensuring that all our information is up to date. We are in the process of contacting each of our sponsors individually and some of you may have already heard from us.

We have set up a new public Facebook page for Sponsored Animals where anyone can come along to see some of our sponsored animals. This page can be found by clicking on the link below. We already have 70 members, many who are friends and family of existing sponsors.

A huge, huge thank you to all our sponsors from all the animals with us at SARA Morocco

July Bonus Day

Over the last few months, we have rescued dogs and puppies that needed urgent veterinary attention.

Our veterinary treatments costs over the last quarter have doubled and we now have debt to clear with our vet.

If you are thinking of making a donation this month, please consider donating on 16 July on the GlobalGiving website as donations between $100 and $1000 will be increased by GlobalGiving from their own funds.

Donating this way on 16^th July will increase the impact of your donation and help us help more animals

Click on the link below between 3pm (GMT+1) tomorrow and 3pm on Thursday .... that 10:00 am EDT  on Wednesday 16th till 10:00 on Thursday 17th for our US readers 

Finally we have some potentially good news from our vets. There is a new vaccine against parvovirus. This deadly disease spreads quickly among unvaccinated puppies and is very difficult to control. We hope this new vaccine will save a lot of lives.

We rescued a lot of young puppies from the city dog pound, though we lost several to parvo and other disease. We also rescued a number of injured street dogs and older dogs some of whom did not survive.

26 dogs and 6 cats left the refuge in the last 3 months for new homes abroad. 

In the last 3 months we have neutered 92 dogs and 210 cats. This brings our total for this year to 160 dogs and 420 cats.

As always thanks to Tierbotschafter for their steadfast support in making life better for the street dogs and cats in Agadir and around.

And that’s all from me, see you in 3 months. Thank you all for your support and understanding.

Best Wishes