Author: SPCAI Staff

In Tanzania, subsistence farmers depend on donkeys to keep their families alive. We’ve seen donkeys used in almost every aspect of transportation- to carry water from miles away, to bring crops to market, or to carry a sick family member to the nearest hospital.  

Unfortunately, donkeys are rarely vaccinated, are often equipped with ill-fitting carts and harnesses that cause festering sores, and can become drastically overworked. In the wild, donkeys live up to 30 years, but we’re told that in Tanzania, working donkeys may live only three or four years.

Our partner organization TAPO (Tanzania Animal Protection Organization) is working diligently to enhance the quality and longevity of life for donkeys. They know farmers and families need donkeys to survive, so they focus on education and assistance to create a better life for donkeys throughout northern Tanzania. 

We recently partnered with TAPO to host a donkey clinic where we provided education to over 120 farmers and medical assistance to over 760 donkeys.

Here, a TAPO staff member drains an infected wound and talks to the farmer about how to provide the best care to the animal. The farmer is learning to provide a longer, healthier and happier life for the donkey, which will also benefit his family. 

 By Emma Koeniger, SPCAI Content and Digital Media Coordinator

This month SPCA International transported eight cats from the Middle East to their forever homes in the United States. These friendly felines were rescued by military service members and government contractors who were on deployment in the Middle East. The rescue logistics were challenging, but these combat cats love their new lives!

Cheetoh’s comfy chair in Washington state is a far cry from the streets of Iraq. He is all purrs in his forever home with the Air Force veteran who became his best bud.

Meat Dough is thrilled to once again be perched on the shoulder of the Army Officer who saved her. She loves playing in her new home in Tennessee.

Princess Jasmine is learning that Oregon is a little colder than the Middle East. Luckily there are so many cozy spots in her forever home with the Army Officer who rescued her.

Dan is enjoying life in Georgia. He is so happy to be back in the arms of the Army Lieutenant who found Dan abandoned by his mother on the streets of Iraq.

Midnight and her three kittens, Simba, Nala and Aslan, couldn’t ask for more now that they are in their forever home in Texas. We’re so glad they get to spend the rest of their lives with the Air Force Lieutenant that rescued them from the verge of death in Iraq, nursed them to health and refused to leave them behind.

The 2017 hurricane season ravaged the islands of Puerto Rico, St. Thomas and St. Martin, among many other communities. Animal welfare organizations in these areas were left without power, food for their animals, stable shelter and proper refrigeration for medication and supplies.

Rebuilding after the hurricanes passed was difficult and expensive. SPCA International reached out to organizations located in these devastated communities to help them rebuild. In Puerto Rico and St. Martin, I Love My Island Dog, El Faro de los Animales, Island Dog Inc. and Amigos de Los Animales received over $50,000 in grants through our Disaster Relief Fund. These grants will help them reconstruct their shelters, provide urgent medical care, and acquire food and clean water for the animals in their care. 

SPCA International was also able to deliver many pallets of veterinary supply aid to St. Thomas Humane Society. These medical supplies will help them care for the animals in their shelter as they continue their life-saving work.

These grants and supply shipments would not have been possible without the support of our loyal donors. Because of them, we are able to help shelters affected by natural disasters continue their essential work for the animals in their communities.

In late 2017 SPCA International also provided Disaster Relief Fund grants to animal welfare organizations located in Florida and Texas in response to the devastation caused by the hurricane season.

There are over 900 stray dogs that roam the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and surrounding 30km area, known as the Exclusion Zone. These dogs are the descendants of pets left behind during the emergency evacuation that took place in April of 1986 after a reactor exploded spreading radioactive materials into the environment.

Decades later, the dogs living in the Exclusion Zone are in almost constant danger – starving, at risk of injury or attack by coexisting animals like wolves. Because the Chernobyl dogs are still radioactive, they are prohibited from being removed from the area.  But SPCA International and Clean Futures Fund (CFF) are trying to change that. Thanks to our joint efforts and the leadership of CFF’s founders, Lucas Hixson and Erik Kambarian, there is hope for these abandoned, beautiful creatures.  SPCAI has partnered up with CFF in a 3-year sterilization program in order to reduce the suffering of dogs in Chernobyl by providing veterinary care, vaccinations, feeding stations, radiation monitoring and hopefully an adoption program.  

In fact, co-founder Erik Kambarian and his family were excitedly preparing their home in the U.S. to welcome in one of the first ever adopted dogs of Chernobyl after the August 2017 Chernobyl spay and neuter clinic. Erik’s exact words were:  “I found a dog; rather she found me. I was at the tourist hotel in the town of Chernobyl getting water for the clinic and came upon an adolescent female dog.  She was docile, with a beautiful coat.  Since we were heading to the clinic I picked her up and got in the Soviet-era car for the short ride.  She calmly sat in my lap, as if she had been on many car rides, and rested her head on my arm like we had known each other for years.  I proudly brought her into the clinic, surprising our staff since I was not one of the dogcatchers.” She was tagged as dog #20, later renamed Elena, spayed and vaccinated, washed for surface contamination and was ready to come ‘home’. 

One month after Erik left in August, he asked one of their volunteers to find out how she was doing and make further plans for her arrival, but the volunteer was hesitant to tell him. Sadly, Elena had been hit by a car and killed, an all too common unfortunate reality for the strays of Chernobyl.  Even though Erik only got to hold her once, he still thinks about her and is even more driven to continue saving lives and working toward an adoption program in her honor. For now, both Erik and Lucas are hopeful that they will be given permission to bring home another dog on their next visit in April of 2018, a first step in demonstrating the safety of animal adoption from Chernobyl.

But make no mistake; the region is an especially challenging one to work in. The abandoned landscape, forest overgrowth combined with the environmental contamination provides a very unique and dangerous experience for the animals and our team.

Stay tuned for more updates in the next few months as preparations get underway for the Chernobyl spay and neuter next clinic scheduled for June of 2018.