Animal shelter support
Outside of wealthy Western countries, animal welfare is a foreign concept in many places.
Animals are often kept solely because they are expected to be of use to them, without considering their needs - dogs are often kept as "alarm systems" (guard dogs) and are chained up outside the house for their entire lives, often receiving only the bare necessities of care for survival , and are often exposed to sun, rain and cold without protection from the elements , or are mistreated .
When these animals are injured or sick, they often do not receive medical help, and when they do not (or no longer) fulfill the task assigned to them as desired, they are abandoned or chased away and left to fend for themselves. Often these animals have never been neutered (due to costs) and the number of strays on the streets continues to explode.
As a result of the large number of street animals that inevitably search for food near people, conflicts with humans are not uncommon (e.g. car accidents, competition for food, biting incidents or fear of disease transmission) and the population often has a strong negative attitude towards stray animals, so that targeted mistreatment or killing is not uncommon.
Relatively little (meaningful) is being done at the state level...
At the state level, relatively little (sensible) is being done - attempts are being made to reduce the stray population either by carrying out targeted killing operations on the streets (see Morocco in particular) or by catching the animals and taking them to state "animal shelters" where, after a short period of time, they are then killed - often in a gruesome manner - which has (appropriately) earned these facilities the name "killing stations" .
Killing station in north-eastern Hungary
We have visited several such state facilities (killing stations), primarily in Hungary, and can only report that the conditions and living conditions there are unfortunately far worse than one can imagine. The people who run these facilities do not usually do so out of "love of animals", but because it represents a secure source of income through the flat rate paid by the state per animal taken in and per day.
But there is also hope:
Despite the dramatic overall situation in many countries, we have also found highly committed animal rights activists everywhere who are committed to the animals with all their heart and all their energy and who are fighting against windmills, trying to bring about institutional improvements and help as many animals as possible to have a better, suffering-free existence.
We are convinced that these isolated, emerging animal protection activities can, with support “from outside”, grow into an animal protection movement that will gradually succeed in bringing about a broad-based change in awareness and fundamental systematic improvements in its own country.
For this reason, it is very important to us to support selected animal shelters and animal welfare associations abroad in their valuable and strenuous work on site by regularly delivering donations in kind (especially food, but also transport boxes, dog houses, scratching posts, toys, etc.), supporting them financially (if necessary, covering costs for food, veterinarians, medication, staff, maintenance, construction and renovation of enclosures and other animal shelter structures, etc.), helping them to find new homes for the animals , and carrying out projects together on site for the castration and basic medical care of stray animals.
We have personally visited the animal shelters and associations we support several times, got to know how they work and the people behind them, and can guarantee that these are absolutely trustworthy and worth supporting institutions that are run by people with their hearts in the right place and who are motivated exclusively by animal welfare.
