Making Happy Tails for Street Dogs in Rwanda

Dear friends and supporters, 

Who can believe we’re almost at the end of 2025? This year has flown past! 

As always, we love to report on all the successes we’ve had in the last 3 months. Between August and now, we: 

• Rescued 13 dogs and puppies 
• Rehomed 14 dogs (in September alone we had 10 successful adoptions – our best ever month at WAG!) 
• Taught a week-long animal welfare course for students and faculty at the University of Rwanda College of Veterinary Medicine
• Ran two trainings on dog bite awareness, prevention and management and responsible dog ownership as part of Rwanda’s rabies elimination efforts to build the capacity of healthcare professionals and youth volunteers to be ‘rabies ambassadors’ 
• Participated in the development of dog bite management guidelines and training materials for the community and healthcare professionals, with Rwanda Biomedical Centre and other partners 
• Hosted John, IBCM Manager for Mission Rabies Malawi, who ran a training for us on launching Integrated Bite Case Management (IBCM) in Rwanda: investigating dog bites, taking samples to test for rabies, and conducting contact tracing for both exposed humans and animals if rabies infection is found. This will be a huge step in rabies elimination and animal welfare efforts!

And another bit of good news from our WAG humans: Olivia and Richard welcomed their new baby, Iris Isimbi, at the beginning of November :) 

Some adoption highlights include: 

• Socks, AKA Mama WAG - our receptionist, visitor greeter and mama to the orphan pups - was adopted with 3-time WAG adopter Innocent! Sweet Socks joins WAG graduates Henry and Winnie and they are all thriving together, though we all miss her at the shelter. 
• Dan, who adopted Maple back in 2023, adopted 2 more WAG dogs for his farm: little Bella and Oreo - who had been at the shelter for a year and a half! Artemis and Hestia, who had also been at the shelter for longer than a year, were adopted by his neighbour Sam. The dogs were a bit scared of the cows at first, but now they spend their days with the herds and are loving being outdoors. 

Thanks to your ongoing support, our rescue work continues and we’ve welcomed some lovely dogs into our care, including the ‘girl gang’ Socks, Saint, Rain, Sandrine, Sheba, Maddy, and Charcoal, and several orphan puppies including Diana, Intwari, Amie and Kai. All of these female dogs could have given birth to at least 16 puppies a year, if left on the street. Rescuing these dogs, sterilising them, and giving them a second shot at a long, happy life has a direct impact on their lives but also on the community as well!

Next week we will be in Nyagatare at the University of Rwanda College of Veterinary Medicine to run a two-week training course led by our partners Worldwide Veterinary Service. 16 final-year veterinary students will be trained in how to castrate and spay dogs, and we will run 2 days of community outreach to sterilise as many dogs in the community as possible! Keep an eye out on our social media for updates on that, as well as more information on our rescue dogs, dogs available for adoption, and some upcoming fundraising news. 

We are so grateful for your support as we make more happy tails for dogs in Rwanda. As we always say, we couldn’t do it without you! We hope you enjoyed these updates and we’re sending you warm greetings from all the humans and dogs of WAG.

Dear friends and supporters, 

As we always say at the beginning of these reports, it’s been another busy 3 months at WAG! 

Between April and July, we:

• Rescued 11 dogs 
• Rehomed 7 dogs with loving families
• Welcomed 5 veterinary students on a summer volunteer program at the shelter - Alodie, Josiane, Janviere, Clementine and Nadine. The future of small animal veterinary medicine in Rwanda (and proving that Rwandan women are awesome vets)!
• Spayed 10 female dogs and neutered 7 male dogs - changing these dogs lives and stopping the cycle of overpopulation

We also finished chemotherapy treatment for both Miracle and Simmy - they are now cancer free and ready for adoption! 

Like we reported in March, we are focusing our efforts on rescuing the most vulnerable, sick and injured dogs on the street. The demand for rescue is SO high - on average we get 4 calls, messages or emails a day about dogs who need help or dogs who are no longer wanted by their owners. Due to our current capacity - financial, resources, and physical space at the shelter, we can’t take on all of these dogs. It’s not sustainable, and rescue alone cannot stop the massive dog overpopulation we currently have in Rwanda. So, we prioritise dogs who need help the most, like: 

Oscar - Oscar was rescued from Gikondo, badly injured. The local community said he had a home, but his owners relocated and left him behind. He was attacked on the street by someone with a machete who chopped off his paw and struck him in the face. Oscar is a senior dog and has suffered unimaginably - but now he’s safe at WAG! He has had several teeth removed and his eye, and we are currently looking into options to amputate his leg to improve his quality of life. 

Molly - Molly was rescued from a neighbourhood nearby the shelter, with a huge TVT (cancerous tumour of the genitals, like Miracle and Simmy). We are seeing more and more cases like this in Kigali! Molly was rescued recently, so she’s still on her treatment journey. But her tumour is already shrinking after a few weeks of chemo, and with continued intensive care we are hopeful she will make a full recovery. 

Bluey - Bluey was rescued from a town outside of Kigali after being hit in the face by a motorbike. Sadly, he needed emergency surgery to remove his eye. Bluey has recovered well, but the vision in his remaining eye has also been affected as a result of the accident and he struggles to see. That doesn’t stop him though! He is playful, active and loves people. We’re hopeful we can find him a new adoptive family soon. 

We are writing this report as the GlobalGiving July Bonus Day campaign wraps up. We have been overwhelmed with the support people have shown us. Not only have we raised a significant amount of money, as well as a portion of the incentive funds from GlobalGiving, but we are newly motivated to continue to expand our work and help more dogs, and the people they live alongside, in Rwanda. Thank you, so much.

Keep an eye out on our social media for more ways you can get involved in WAG’s growth, as we launch some exciting new projects in the next few months: we are counting on you to help us spread the word about WAG and help us reach new donors, foundations and partners who can help grow our work. Every share, every referral, every time you mention WAG to someone who hasn’t heard about us before helps more than you know! 

Thank you for your continued support. 

With love from the humans and dogs at WAG x

Links:

• Check us out on Instagram and follow us for updates!