Animal Welfare Rwanda Project #53458

Making Happy Tails for Street Dogs in Rwanda

by Welfare for Animals Guild Rwanda

Project Report | Mar 24, 2025
March 2025 report

By Olivia Clarke | Director

WAG vet interns and students in action!

Wow - it’s been the busiest three months for WAG, ever!

We completed our mass sterilisation project with the Foundation for Veterinary Aid International (FAVI) in partnership with the Rwandan Agricultural and Animal Resources Board, from February 25 until March 10. We sterilised and vaccinated a total of 268 dogs and cats over 3 sites: Mulindi in Kigali, and Rwinkwavu and Mwili in Kayonza District, Eastern Province. Our Mwili site was at a school in one of the most remote corners of Rwanda - the scenery was incredible and it was a real adventure for both the FAVI team and us Waggies.

We learnt such a lot from the FAVI team and made lifelong friends and mentors, and we are so excited to continue partnering with them to provide essential veterinary services to dog owners around Rwanda!

Recent rescues:

So far in 2025, we have rescued 12 dogs and rehomed 10. All this has been possible thanks to your ongoing support and donations. This year, we have tried to focus on rescuing the most needy or injured dogs - read on to learn about some of them!

Miracle

Miracle is one of the worst abuse and neglect cases we’ve ever seen. She was suffering from a huge TVT (transmissible venereal tumour, which is a type of contagious cancer on the genitals which is mostly spread through sexual contact). We learnt that Miracle had been abandoned on the street, and several people in the community had tried to kill her, including some people who tied her to a tree and left her to starve. Somehow, Miracle survived - she’s a real life miracle! After almost 3 months of chemotherapy, administered weekly by our vets at the shelter, she is nearly cancer free and despite her traumatic past, she’s a wonderful happy dog.

Simmy

Simone, AKA Simmy, is another victim of TVT. She was found by a friend of WAG, and once we saw her pictures we immediately knew she had a TVT - and we knew we could treat her! Simmy’s tumour was not as advanced as Miracle’s, and after 8 weeks of chemo, she is now cancer free. All of our dogs are sweet, but Simmy is definitely a contender for the sweetest dog in the history of WAG! She is gentle, kind, and will make an excellent companion. She’s now spayed, healthy and ready for adoption - so get in touch if you’d like more information on her!

While fairly straightforward to treat (though does require patience!), TVT can look gruesome and of course many people just don’t know what it is. So dogs with a TVT are most at risk of being abused or killed at the hands of people. Your ongoing support helps us help dogs who have no other options, so thank you.

Pippin

Pippin was an emergency rescue - hit by a car and left on the street. When we got to her, we knew she needed x-rays - thanks to our friends at New Vision Veterinary Hospital. Unfortunately we found that she had extensive damage to her pelvic bones and upper femur which had already started healing, as well as a deep abscess in her leg. We are currently treating the abscess and giving daily pain medication and physio, in the hope that she recovers from the infection and can potentially have surgery in the future to help her walk again.

We have SO many more updates that just don’t fit into this newsletter, so here’s a quick rundown and if anyone would like more information please check out our channels on social media (linked below!) or email us at info@wagrwanda.org.

We were thrilled to have 3 final-year veterinary students from the University of Rwanda join us for their month-long internship, Jean de Dieu, Saidi, and Derrick. This was the first time we have hosted internships for veterinary students and it was a valuable experience for us and for them! They learnt about shelter medicine, conducted health assessments on all our dogs, and of course were vital team players in our mass sterilisation campaigns. A HUGE thank you to all three students and please wish them the best of luck in their final months of studying!
In January, we kicked off a pilot school education project called ‘Happy Dogs, Happy Communities’ which aims to educate students and teachers on the links between responsible dog ownership, dog welfare, and rabies reduction. We are developing curriculum with some teachers and hope to eventually scale up to other schools.
In January, we participated in the national taskforce on rabies elimination committee meeting, and presented to high-level Government of Rwanda stakeholders on the importance of humane dog population management in rabies control. We developed a 6-month plan for different activities to kickstart rabies control and surveillance in Rwanda: as always, more to come next time on this!

Thank you for your support that makes projects like this possible: we are so grateful that we can do our day-to-day work of running the shelter as well as working on other projects that really address why dogs are on the street in the first place. If you would like to learn more about a specific project, please get in touch and, as always, please spread the word about our work!

With much gratitude and wagging tails,

The WAG pack: humans and dogs

Sterilisation clinic in a remote school, Mwili

And at a market in Rwinkwavu village!

Miracle having chemo with vet Emmy

Sweet Simmy: always smiling, always wagging!

Newly rescued Pippin at the hospital

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Nov 22, 2024
November 2024 update

By Olivia Clarke | Director

The WAG Team during the WVS sterilisation training

As we always say, the last few months have flown by! We can’t believe we are reaching the end of 2024.

Since our last report at the end of July, we have:

Rescued 20 dogs and puppies
Rehomed 14 dogs and puppies
Together with Worldwide Veterinary Service, successfully trained 14 vets and veterinary students in small animal sterilisation and sterilised 68 dogs in a 2 week period
Attended 2 mass vaccination events, in Gatsibo and Kayonza, with partners from the Government of Rwanda and other organisations
Sterilised 12 dogs at our small on-site clinic with our veterinary team

You might remember Shanti’s newborn puppies in our last update? Well we are happy to report that all 7 puppies are healthy, happy and ready for adoption! They are completely adorable and love playing with each other.

Clara's rescue story

Our rescue work continues - it's been a busy few months with many medical cases. Most of the dogs we have rescued recently have been injured or very badly malnourished. One of our rescues was Clara and her 7 babies.

Clara had given birth in a densely populated neighbourhood in Gikondo on the side of a mountain. We couldn’t even drive to pick her up - we had to carry the crate for a few kilometers (including through a school which made for an interesting rescue, as on our return to the car we were accompanied by over 100 kids!)

Clara was severely malnourished, and 2 of her babies had already passed away. Once we got them to WAG, we discovered that they were infested with maggots under their skin. We’ll spare you the photos, but we spent a few hours extracting them and cleaning up the puppies’ wounds.

Clara and her puppies are now thriving. Without WAG, they definitely would not have survived. Thanks to all our supporters covering our daily and weekly operational costs, urgent rescues like Clara’s and her babies are made possible!

Adoption stories

We’ve had some pretty memorable adoptions in the last few months! Long time WAG resident Bubs was finally adopted, by previous WAG adopter Jolly and family. They also adopted Millie too, so now 3 WAG dogs live together. We are so happy for them all.

And shelter favourites Aunty Stoney and sweet shy Moon were adopted together by Fabrice, who had adopted Freddie from WAG back in 2018. Freddie unfortunately passed away and Fabrice decided to open his home to more WAG dogs. We are so grateful for Fabrice choosing Stoney and Moon together and our team members have been to visit them a few times.

Other updates

A lot has been going on behind the scenes in our work leading rabies elimination and humane dog population management strategies in Rwanda. We have some exciting partnerships and projects on the horizon that we hope to share more about in our next report! We are so grateful for your continued support to allow us to grow, reach more dogs, and help establish lasting interventions to improve the lives of dogs (and the people they live with!) in Rwanda.

On that note, we are launching a new fundraiser here on GlobalGiving for Giving Tuesday, on December 3rd. We will be specifically fundraising for a vehicle for WAG. Many of you know that our current vehicle situation is not sustainable nor practical - we rely on taxis or volunteers’ personal cars. Look out for more information on our social media as Giving Tuesday approaches, and, if you are able to, please share our fundraiser with someone who might be interested in supporting us!

It goes without saying that we are all so glad that you’re here. Thanks for reading and continuing to support us!

With love from the WAG pack: both humans and dogs

Shanti's puppies, Frankie and Amal

Clara and puppies, safe at WAG

Some recent adoptions!

Vanessa out walking Moon and Mamacita

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Jul 29, 2024
July 2024 update

By Olivia Clarke | Director

The last three months have passed by so quickly! Since our last report in April, we have rescued 18 dogs and rehomed 15. We’ve had so many happy tails it’s hard to choose a few to include here -- in the photo above you can see just a few of the successful human-canine matches we've made. A couple of adoption highlights include:

Bernard, a firm favourite amongst the WAG humans, found a great family. He was transformed under WAG’s care from a scared, defensive guard dog to a sweet, happy, trusting family companion.
Pili Pili, who was rescued with a severely broken leg which required complex surgery to fix, was adopted by Bony and family — he also has a new canine sister called Masha and they are firm friends. Pili Pili was such a loveable troublemaker at our shelter — we miss him a lot but we don’t miss him climbing out of the dog pen and getting into our kitchen to steal food!

We’ve rescued so many dogs who would have otherwise suffered on the street. We rescued Wolfie, who had been attacked and had large wounds across his head when we found him, and Toby, who had a broken leg which had healed and fused whilst homeless. Another rescue highlight is Shanti, who was rescued while heavily pregnant. As soon as she was safely with us, she gave birth to 7 tiny but healthy puppies! Shanti and family are doing well and they have been generously sponsored by several of our supporters, which will cover all their vaccinations for the next 3 months, food and deworming meds.

Another big piece of news is that we have established our small shelter clinic! We had a fundraiser in May (thank you to everyone who came and those who supported us from afar!) and with the funds raised we have procured the medicines, equipment, and supplies needed to do basic first aid care, vaccinations, sterilisations, and other minor surgeries for our WAG dogs. This is a huge game changer for us as it keeps our costs down for those essential procedures like sterilisations and vaccinations. We have so far done four neuters at our little clinic and have big plans for more!

We have been hard at work preparing for Kigali’s first ever mass sterilisation event, in partnership with Worldwide Veterinary Service. WVS are sending 3 team members to train 12 Rwandan vets on surgical sterilisation, and we will sterilise between 100-120 dogs (and a few cats too!) over the course of the next two weeks. A lot of our time has been spent in wholesale pharmacies sourcing medications and supplies, and preparing our little clinic space. We’ll also test our national dog registration database system, and vaccinate and microchip every dog that we sterilise.

Thank you, as always, for your ongoing support of WAG. We may be small but we have a big impact - and we have big plans! WAG started 10 years ago as a grassroots initiative, and with your support we’re realising our dreams. We are so hopeful that as we grow we will not only help more dogs but start to address the root causes of why dogs are on the street in the first place, through collaborations, education, training, and veterinary care.

Please share this update with any friends, family or colleagues who may be interested in what we do, and thank you once again for your support.

With love from the WAG pack: both humans and dogs

Proud mama Shanti and her puppies

Wolfie being neutered by our amazing clinic team!

One of our puppies Nala receiving her vaccine.

Vanessa giving Soso some love and attention.

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