Caring for injured and sick animals

Rescuing pets in need is an on-going activity for us. As the strays are so many, finding sick or injured ones in need of hospitalization is an almost everyday occurrence.
Although the expenses per case can be a few hundred euro, we try to do the best that we can, in many cases keeping cats and dogs for treatment at our homes for as long as it is necessary.
You can support us in different ways: covering part of our vet expenses or offering medication and special food in case the cats need particular diets, for example with animals with kidney, liver or gastrointestinal problems.

Neutering of strays to improve their quality of life.

Being homeless and forced to give birth 2-3 times per year is not easy. Stray cats in Greece, especially in urban locations, face serious difficulties: giving birth on the pavement, under cars, or in unsuitable places results with the newborn being killed or simply thrown in the trash bin. Birth complications and infections are a major cause of death for unneutered females who die a slow and painful death from the infection which slowly poisons their body. For male cats things are equally bad. Mating season means constant fighting, leading sometimes to very serious injuries as well as the transmission of incurable diseases like fiv and felv. And more importantly, males in search of females daily cover great distances, with a very high risk of being hit by cars.

However, even more importantly, an unchecked cat population, constantly increasing and with the unneutered males producing noise with their fighting and strong smells from their urine when marking their territories guarantee that in a country where animal rights education is primitive an annoyed neighbour sooner or later will poison them.

That is why one of the principal objectives of our animal welfare society is to neuter as many strays per year as our budget allows, running a constant trap, neuter and return project. Our activities are focused around areas where we have experienced volunteers who are able to trap but we also try to help people who contact us and need support in trapping and neutering the cats they feed. Although we neuter hundreds of animals each year, we can never really say that our job is done, as in some areas there are literally tens of cats in every city block and in some cases it is very difficult to trap them. Trapping needs special equipment and in areas where the animals are well fed it requires time and effort.
However there is a limit to the cats we are able to neuter as our funds are limited.

We need your support to continue this work.

Rehoming as many strays as possible.

Our greatest dream would be to see all strays happily adopted in a loving home. And although this will not be possible for most of them, we strive to accomplish it for those that we are able to. Adoption in itself is not an easy process for an animal welfare volunteer: a rescue cat or dog needs to be fostered for an indefinate time, become healthy, if not so, treated for parasites, vaccinated and photographed to be placed as an add for interested posible adopters. This process requires time, foster space and money, especially in the case when due to lack of foster homes the aninal needs to be placed in a kennel. And of course we should not forget our permanently "fostered" ones. Cats and dogs that due to character issues or disabilities are not adoptable.

Our volunteers provide when possible a permanent home to many animals that cannot be adopted but would not survive in the street. So we have a constant need for cat and dog food, cat toilet sand, cat and dog beds, medicine, etc

Informing the public on animal welfare issues.

Education is paramount in all aspects of human activities. In the case of pets in Greece there is a great lack in that respect. The result is that our country is amongst the least developed countries in respect with animal welfare. Although there are laws in place to ensure the protection of owned and stray animals of maltreatment, there is a general ignorance and disregard for them. Poisoning and killings, abandonment, neglect and maltreatment are everyday practices so common that most consider them normal and the few who do not are too afraid to react. We have realized early on that if we do not change the mentality of the public concerning the responsible ownership and treatment of strays, we will never be able to really improve the situation for animals in Greece. To this end, we have created a collection of leaflets covering various issues, from informing on basic legislature to special care of animals with various disabilities, which we distribute at events that we organize ourselves or participate.

Your help is needed to ensure the funds for printing these leaflets.