Hondenopvang

12-02-09
That the SDB is lucky to have all the people that help and support is very clear. However, we are always surprised by the actions taken by these people to raise money for the stray dogs in Bosnia.

we have adopted the dog Prince on a distance for some time now. We came in contact with you via the website marktplaats because we offered a bench. Unfortunately it was already sold before I could give it to you, but we used the money earned for the adoption of Prince. My friend Ron and I were married at the end of last year, and last January we organized a drink to celebrate this. We requested our family / friends not to give any gifts, but to make a contribution to the animal shelter in Amsterdam and your work in Bosnia. We have a cat and a dog, and we think your work is really great. The proceeds of the drink were 300 euros, of which there are 150 euros transferred to your bank account.

Dear Ron and Charles, really great thanks for this donation! You guys are the best.

09-02-09 All sorts of news items.
The new year is not new anymore because we are in February already. Time flies. The last trip to Sarajevo is still fresh in my memory. What a trip that was again, very special. The dogs that came with us from Sarajevo have all been re-homed, except for one and they are doing very well. A visit to to Sarajevo and Orasje has been scheduled already early March. The story on the trip to Sarajevo, you can read on our page of reports.

Orasje
In Orasje, there are currently more than 110 dogs. A husband and wife has been hired in order to help Svjetlana and the dogs to make it more enjoyable and easier. The former employee was dismissed. The dogs are doing good, although it is always survival. Jusuf is making it reasonably well and we hope he feels better in April. We all look forward to April.

The mayor has appointed a building which we will use for the castration project in April. We are very curious how many people will come. The people will be informed by TV and radio to come with their dog or cat. The Dutch medical team consisting out of SDB veterinarians and veterinarian assistants to castrate / sterilize, vaccinate, de-worm and de-flea. We hope for a successful project and maybe a sequel will follow in September.

Sarajevo Shelter
Many dogs have been brought to the shelter of Goga during the past weeks, especially puppies. They are dropped in bunches and abandoned at the gates of the shelter. Goga has to accept them and hope they will survive. We hope to start improving the living conditions of the animals in the shelter in Sarajevo this year.

Goodbye to volunteer Conny
Conny has started her own foundation and will focus on helping Croatia. SDB will now only be working in Bosnia. Now with Sarajevo starting we have our hands full. Conny, We wish you all the luck and hope it will work out for the stray animals in Croatia. Want to know more about this new foundation, you can soon find more info on www.idemo.com Conny thanks so much for everything you have done for the SDB!

Yesterday we finally got the phone call from Svjetlana we were waiting for, the installation of the electricity at the shelter is finished. Yesterday was the moment that they could "hit the button"! And we are all happy and proud. To see the construction check the movie that Eerhard made when he was, together with Tanja, at the shelter a few weeks ago. On the reports page is a report made by Tanja. There is also a file of pictures of the construction of the electricity on the photo and video page. We can not say it enough ... Dear people who have donated money for the construction of electricity, you are fantastic!
http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=qj-2c16S3kQ

Eerhard and Svjetlana have had a conversation with the mayor of Orasje and asked for help in April 09 with the establishment of a castration / sterilization project. The mayor was very enthusiastic and promised to help and support. This assistance consists of finding a location where we can work the entire week and where the animals could recover after surgery. Also, he committed to arrange consent of the vet inspection.

The mayor had admiration for our perseverance. He said that he was initially skeptical about the SDB. "Just another organization that promises to do everything, solves nothing, and eventually leaves" he thought. Therefore he had not given the SDB much support and. Now he sees that the SDB is not an organization of many words and little action, but of many acts, he would gladly give his cooperation.

The mayor knows that this is a special project and Orasje will be an example for entire Bosnia.

We will try to help as much animals as possible in. The medical team will not only perform castrations / sterilizations but every animal that is brought in will get a free rabies vaccination and be de-flead and de-wormed.

We will be calling on people to come by distributing flyers and messages via TV, radio and newspapers. We all look forward with great excitement.

Transport Orasje and Croatia
In the meantime, a truck with trailer full of collected supplies went to Bosnia. Because we had so many things and there is not enough space in the shelter of Orasje we donated half a container to the shelter in Croatia. They were very happy.

The truck stopped on the route to Zagreb, where the people from the shelter were waiting to unload the container. Blankets, baskets, food and much more went to Varazdin.

The container we use in Moerdijk to store everything went to Bosnia and is now in the shelter. This container is completely rat / mouse free and all the food is stored inside. We would like to thank container company Meeberg, SUPER thanks for this container and all of your help time after time! Dear people in Moerdijk, thank you so dearly.

All people who have helped collecting, thanks so much for your help every time. The animals are extremely pleased with all the stuff that you have collected. Without you the life of the animals would be more difficult.

Bosnian dog walk
There was a bad weather report but we did not care. And fortunately we have only had a couple of light showers but most of the time it was dry. It was a pleasant walk with lots of lovely dogs and very nice owners.. It is a joy every time. Dogs that we know from Bosnia who now have such a close bond with their new owners that no one is able to come between them. Dear people who were present, it was super to have seen you again and again we look forward to the next walk.

Electricity shelter
It was a huge success, the electricity project. We were all under impressed and did not dare to dream so many people would donate. Within two months time, we collected the entire amount.

In the meantime, the money is transferred and the construction started. Electricity poles have already almost reached the asylum and it will not be long before it is all finished. Svjetlana is terribly happy and on its behalf, Jusuf and the dogs we Thank you again so much!

Health Jusuf
At present it are exciting and emotional times for Svjetlana and Jusuf. One have detected lung cancer with Jusuf. In the meantime, he had chemo therapy twice and the reports are that the tumor has not grown, but instead of that is getting smaller. Time will tell how all this will evolve. We hope that Jusuf will be a on the side of Svjetlana for many years and we will try to help them as much as we can.

Trips to the shelter
Tanja and Eerhard are currently in Orasje. Thursday is an important day because they will have a conversation with the mayor. We want to organize a castration-project in April and we need the help and support from the mayor. Hopefully Thursday is as positive as he always is to us. Tanja wil help Svjetlana with taking care of the animals and Eerhard and Baan (employee shelter) will do several other jobs that have to be done. Friday they are back in the Netherlands.

At the end of November, Suze, Fred, Winanda and Cokkie will go to the shelter to help Svjetlana. The winter is coming so everything that can be done or made is crucial. They will help Svjetlana with the care of the animals and try to finish the kennels, we started making them in September, so they can be used as soon as possible.

Sarajevo 23-09-08

Eerhard, Rob, Elvira and I went to Sarajevo to meet some people, talking about everything that is happening and visiting a shelter. I did not feel enthusiastic. Going all the way from Orasje to Sarajevo by car. I installed myself safely in the back of the car, so this way I would not see much from what was to be seen outside of the car. I had seen dead dogs on the side of the road for too many times, seeing dogs in the streets or chained. I am well aware of this image, and it is no need to be confronted with this all the time. My place was in the back of the car.

After a drive of 4,5 hours we arrived in Sarajevo and went to the location where we had an appointment with several people. Among others Jelena, she does a lot of work for the abandoned animals in Sarajevo, and Haris, a young Bosnian veterinarian. We had so much to talk about that time was by before we knew it. And we had to visit the shelter in Sarajevo too. If we did not stop talking and leave for the shelter now, it would be much too late to return to Orasje.

Together with Jelena, who is helping the shelter, we went to the shelter, to finally arrive , after going through really tiny, impossible streets. A wooden fence was the only thing between us and the noise of barking dogs.

Goga, the manager of the shelter, came towards us together with a couple of cats. The cats were apparently living at the shelter. Passing the wooden fence we got at the terrain. The noise of all the barking dogs was immense but we did not see a lot of dogs. Two of them were chained and had their own doghouse. They told us it were mother and son.

When we went on further on to the terrain, we finally saw where all the barking was coming from. Three long rows of kennels packed with dogs. Every kennel was approx two by two meters. There was a big doghouse inside, brand new and looking very nice, but at the same time it made the space for the dogs much smaller. The dogs never leave the kennels.. They rarely come out. And that made it terribly sad.

Where one dog would long for some attention, the other one even more. The almost squirm through their cage to get someone touching them. Most of them were big, beautiful, sweet and touching dogs that I would have gladly taken all of them. They were all looking fine, nice fur, not skinny. They are well fed and the medical care is okay. Goga has good contacts with a vet and the university from Sarajevo where the education of vet is..

But it is so sad and heartbreaking to be locked up all day as a dog, in a kennel that is maximum two by two meters, and not being able to get out sometimes. They are just not enough volunteers to spend time on every dog in the shelter. Taking care of these animals takes a lot of time, this is being done by Goga, and one lady that helps in the morning, so there is simply not enough time to get the dogs out of their cages once in a while. And there is no space for the dogs to be able to run, dig or play with each other.

For the past years over 1500 dogs have been re-homed by the shelter, but most of the time this are the young ones and pups that will find a home. The older dogs, as of 1 year and older don't stand a chance.

Goga manages this shelter for 9 years. A couple of organisations from several countries take dogs now and then and re-home them in their own country. For these dogs a donation is given like for example food. There is one organisation that donates money each month but it is insufficient to pay the costs made by the shelter, with over 150 dogs. So they need help desperately.

We did a tour around the shelter and seen and heard a lot. We were all moved. SDB decided o support this shelter. We will help to improve the environment of the dogs and maybe help medically wise. (dozens of dogs have to be sterilised/castrated). So there is plenty of work that we can do to make their life a better life.

SDB is deliberating on how we can deal with this the best way and how to start doing this. If we have more news about this project, we will certainly let you know.

Little Dog Pusa

During our tour around the shelter I heard a loud howling a couple of times, and it dominated all the other sounds. At a certain moment I found the source of this noise. There were three benches lined up and in one of those benches there was a small black poodle, crying her heart out to be released. Inside there was a box with litter, a small basket and some food. The little one was standing on her back legs in the litter box up against the side of the bench. Goga opened the bench and got her out.

She was so small and skinny that I immediately fell in love with her. I felt so sorry for her. Apparently she was found on the streets some weeks before by some people. She was dehydrated and emaciated. I decided I had to arrange something for her and I had to find a way to get her out of there because this was an awful experience for her. After making some phone calls arrangements were made. Pusa would be on a plan to Holland next week. I was able to go to Orasje feeling relieved.

The next day we got the news that our solution for saving Pusa was cancelled. Now what? I had to find someone else. Suze offered the solution by fostering Pusa. Now we had to arrange Pusa being brought from Sarajevo to Orasje, a 4,5 hour drive. The man who found her in the streets was prepared to take her from Sarajevo to Orasje. The day before our return to Holland little weak Pusa arrived at the shelter.

Pusa came to Holland with us and she had a hard time recovering. She was very weak and barely survived. Fortunately she has the persistence of a pit-bull and with the excellent care of Suze and Fred she made it and she is now part of a sweet family in Holland. Pusa is now called Sira and you can find an update on our page "onze honden".

Educational project

When the principal escorted us to the classroom I felt extremely nervous. There would probably be waiting 5 children that applied voluntarily to listen to our story.. Our story, which is in our opinion THE most important subject. We entered the room and the children were bored after ten minutes……..

This was the worst case scenario, the one that scared me when we entered the first school to start our educational project. But reality was totally different;

The principal gave us a cordial welcome and after having a small conversation we were brought to the classroom where approx 40 children were waiting for us. They had combined some classes to reach more children in one go. Oh my god, I felt so nervous. Whenever I have to tell something about the foundation it is never a problem, I never lose any sleep over it. But this time….in front of a class full of children. How were they going to react? Would they be interested?

Suze, Elvira and I made up a list of questions that we were going to ask by turns to stimulate the interaction with the children. Elvira was going to translate everything from English to Bosnian, and the other way around. Because of my nerves I started asking the questions which Suze was supposed to ask and because of that I became more nervous, and my hands were getting more wet because of the transpiration. Does anyone here the beating of my heart? I heard it, pumping in my ears!!

The children reacted really enthusiastic to the questions and most of them participated. "Who loves animals?" Suze asked. All hands raised. "Who knows how to take care of an animal, dog or cat" was my key question to continue the story about sterilisation/castration. Again a load of hands went up in the air. These kind of reactions were way beyond my expectations and I had to control myself to not give them all a big hug to thank them for helping us by listening and being all enthusiastic.

For every group of kids we needed about half an hour. When there were more questions from the kids we stayed a little bit longer. At the end of our visit we handed out the educational booklets and our flyer, both translated to Bosnian. The kids were eager to get the booklets and after this we asked them if they thought it was an interesting session. Every group replied by giving us a loud "Yeeeeaaaaaahhhhhh".

Every school we visited, seven in total, gave us a warm welcome and they turned all classes upside down to get the children together in one room. In one school they even got the gym involved, because this group was too big to fit in one normal classroom.

Everywhere we were the feedback was excellent and time after time I went outside after the session all numb because of the incredible success and because this made me feel so happy. We visited schools for two days, and we have spoken to almost 400 children. One school even wanted to see us a second time because the principal wanted us to do the same with other classes. It was really tiring, but worth every bit of energy. A special experience.

Someone told me, when I went to Bosnia as a volunteer for the first time in 2000 to help people, that you have to start with one person. My wish is that we have been able to motivate at least one child, that we have been able to save one dog, that we have been able to have one family started thinking about what to do and then take action. That it had made a difference.

03-10-08 Back from Bosnia
It has been almost a week since we came home. Our week in Orasje went by so fast. What did we do an what has happened?

04-09-08 Donations electricity
WAUW !! We received amazing feedback from people that react on the electricity project. We have received half of the amount we need to install the electricity in the shelter of Orasje. We could not have imagined this many reactions in such a short period of time. More and more light bulbs are burning, there is light at the end of the dark tunnel.
We hope this positive feedback will go on and that we will soon have the amount of money we need. We would like to thank everyone that has already contributed, thank you so much!!

03-09-08 Was this Dorris ?
Sometimes you receive and email from someone with stories that touch your heart. We want to share this email with you.

Hey, my name is Gorica,
I was born in Tuzla, and I regularly visited the city...about 4 times a year. But I have not been there for two years now.
Every time I was over there I was struck by the situation of abandoned animals. Cats, and especially dogs.
It has been approx 5 or 6 years ago, when I saw a very young dog around the building where we had our apartment, I believe I was about 11 years old. Because of me going 4 times a year to Tuzla I got attached to this dog. I called her Twister(I don't know why), and every time we met I gave her some food, and I gave her something against worms(I don't remember how I got this).
There was a small supermarket at the entrance of the building. People that worked in this shop told me that she was waiting for an entire year in the morning in front of the shop.
When I would walk outside the would follow me. When I went to shops she would follow me too. We were not able to take her with us, because we have a big dog at home and we had no idea how his reaction to this dog would be. The next year I was unable to trace her. I was scared of her maybe dead, or shot by hunters, because they shoot dogs in the winter, people with guns are asked to shoot dogs.... and then I checked out your website and choose the name Sorris, one of the re-homed dogs....she has so much resemblance... it has been a while, and I can make mistakes, but if this is the dog I have hugged so many times, I would like to tell the owners that gave her a new home can look at themselves as the luckiest people in the world ;)

3-9-08 Petition against the new law concerning aggressive dogs
If it is up to our Minister Verburg, there is a new law, from 1st of January 2009, that tells us that every dog that shows "unwanted aggressive behaviour" has to be seized and do a special behavioural test. If the dog does not succeed, it will be put to sleep, as she states in a letter to the parliament.
Read more about this ...

An event called Buitenlandse hondendag(day of foreign dogs) 31 Augustus 2008
For the first time the forum for foreign dogs held a special event organised for everyone with or without a dog adopted from countries outside of Holland. Several foundations got the opportunity to present themselves and the work they do for the animals in other countries, the help they can use and to sell their merchandise to raise money for the animals that could really use all the help they can get.
We were also present on this sunny day with many of our enthusiastic volunteers.
Dutch games of fair like a grabble bag and pulling ropes, and the selling of beautiful items like t-shirts, blankets, dog leashes and collars, toys, it was all really popular.
Many people were obviously feeling sorry for the situation of abandoned animals in Bosnia, and this gave us positive feelings. The benefits of the day was approx 300 euro, a wonderful amount that will be used in the right way.
We would like to thank everybody for supporting us by being there and making a contribution. It was a big success.

Educational program and permission
Behind the screens of the SDB it is always hectic. For the past few weeks Elvira and Alisa have been very busy making letters. Letters that have to be send to the Minister of Education and for the schools in Bosnia.
We want to organise the educational program the right way, and getting support from the Minister and his department would be excellent. Evira and Alisa drew up a wonderful letter, and we have send this from Holland to the department of Education by fax. The feedback we received is amazing !! You can read this HIER and HIER
We are extremely proud of this and we will do our utmost to let this project succeed. By educating children (and adults) more animals will be saved.
Dogs Trust gave permission to use their educational booklet, which we have translated to the Bosnian language, Dogs Trust also sponsored the costs for printing the first 5000 booklets.
We would like to thank Dogs Trust very much for their help and support time after time. Dogs Trust is the biggest organisation for animal protection in England, they have meant a lot for us. You can find Dogs Trust on their website www.dogstrust.org.uk

Trip September 2008
The crew is ready to go to Orasje in September. On the 19th of September we will leave for Orasje to be working for an entire week. Several plans are made and of course castrations and sterilisations will be performed.
We are going to visit schools, build a wooden house, making kennels and all other things that have to be done.
Meanwhile Conny and Paul went to the shelter in Croatia for a week. You can find the report on this trip on our page reports.

SDB Walking the dog on the Rozendaalseveld near Rozendaal (Gld)
On the 26th of October we will have our annual walk, with all the Bosnian and Croatian dogs and their owners.

14-08-08 All sorts of news
It has been almost two weeks since they have returned from their trip to Bosnia.
Suze, Fred, Cokkie and Winanda went to the shelter in Orasje. They have been busy with all sorts of things and you can find a report on this trip on the page of reports. They brought ten dogs to Holland and we will do our best to find the best homes for these sweet dogs.
SDB is very happy to have permanent volunteers who are doing so much for the dogs in Bosnia. The things they do, the trips they make to Bosnia, at their own expenses!! This makes the volunteers even more special than they are already.
Suze, Fred, Cokkie and Winanda thanks so much for going again!

Electricity in the shelter of Orasje
The previous large project, building the fence around the shelter, is finished, so it is time to introduce the next project.
The shelter uses an aggregate to get electricity. This aggregate uses a lot of fuel and is having problems working all the time.
With the winter coming it is time to have genuine electricity.
We have a proposal from the electricity company so we could start to install it. The problem is that the instalment will cost at least € 8000,00, this is a substantial amount.
SDB has not asked her supporters for extra donations over the past few years. We are about to change this because we really need your support this time.
SDB wants to ask you to buy 1 meter electricity wire.
1 meter will cost you € 10,00. Of course your name will be mentioned on the website and in the shelter of Orasje. On top of this all you will receive a certificate and a surprise gift.
We hope you will support the SDB financially, so we are soon able to make a start with the implementation of the electricity.

Trip September 2008
We have already created our team that will go work in the shelter in September. We will be accompanied by a veterinarian and of course we will do a lot of odd jobs. Plans are made already. We have to make new kennels. The wooden house that is on the shelter has to be assembled, the storage has to be made into a mouse-free, so it will turn out to be a busy week.

30-07-08 "Ademloos " by Kim Moelands
In 2005 I had an interview for a magazine called Linda, this interview was performed by Kim Moelands. Talking about the foundation is easy so we were talking for an hour soon. At a certain moment Kim asked me what the procedure was when someone wanted to adopt a dog, because she had seen a cute dog on our website Klempara (Balou). While telling my story I explained the way we work with adoption and told Kim that Balou was staying with a foster family in Utrecht. Kim was clear about her thinking that Balou was a remarkable dog. At the end of the conversation Kim left and would keep me posted about her maybe visiting Balou. She desperately wanted a dog, but she thought it was not the right moment. Within one hour Kim called that she really wanted to see Balou.
Balou quickly found her home with Kim, it was love at first sight.
By adopting Balou, Kim and I(SDB) stayed in contact. Kim helped us in any way she could and became a volunteer with the SDB. Thanks to her dedication and support the SDB was noticed by Dutchy Puppy and we are now receiving support from them.
Kim has Cystic Fibrosis and is trying to get everything out of her life, together with Balou, in spite of this horrible disease.
Kim has written a book about her life, even Balou is part of the story. This book is really worth reading, it will take your breath away!!
You want to know more? Check out the website www.kimmoelands.nl

18-07-08 Bosnian student in Holland
Nedim is living in Tuzla, he is 16 years old. Nedim is familiar with the SDB, because his father used to work in the shelter in Tuzla. Nedim helped us many times when we were working in the shelter of Tuzla. He gave us the impression he was sincere.
Nedim started an education program to become a veterinary assistant and is eager to become a vet himself. Because he is so enthusiastic and wants to see and learn more than he is learning in Bosnia, he asked us if we could help him. We were able to let Nedim come to Holland and he had two weeks of internship in the clinic of Hendrik Ido Ambacht and the animal hospital in Dordrecht.
Nedim had an awesome time and did an excellent job. He is learning really fast and very interested in everything he experiences. We hope that Nedim had two useful weeks in Holland.

Event: "Dag van mens en dier" on the 26th of July
For everyone that wants to have a nice day we can recommend the event "de dag van mens en dier". SDB will be present to sell items for their own foundation but also for Dutchy Puppy. More info www.dagvanmensendier.nl

15-07-08 New boradmember SDB
During our last board meeting on the 13th of July we decided to add Rob Mulder to our board as one of the new members. He will fill in the vacancy caused by the resignation of Marco Sijstermanns.
Rob Mulder is working as a manager of a car fleet.

The board currently exists out of :
Wilma de Joode, chairwoman
Henny Bax, Secretary
Eerhard van Vliet, chamberlain
Wille Koppelaar, member
Rob Mulder, member

14-07-08 News concerning the board of the SDB
Because of a difference of opinion between Marco and the other members of the board, the decision was made that Marco will resign as a member of the board and will no longer be an active member working for the foundation.

All members of the board support this decision. Marco accepts this decision. We do want to mention the fact that Marco contributed substantially to the SDB, and we would like to thank him for this.

Lovely gesture of dogs association Walcheren
We received an email of the dogs association called Howa from Vlissingen. Every new season they collect money for a charity and this time the choose SDB. This means that they will collect supplies with their members and others for the dogs in Bosnia. This of course sounds magnificent and we are pleasantly surprised by this initiative. IF you would like to know more about HOWA, please check their website www.hondenverenigingwalcheren.nl

Donation of a freezer unit for the shelter in Croatia
Conny and Paul, who are volunteers with the SDB, went to a shelter close to Zagreb with a couple of friend. Last February Wilma and Conny visited this shelter and Conny decided she had to do more for them. SDB is considering to do something for this shelter, because the hardly get any support and there are staying more than 250 dogs.

When Conny called from Croatia and told that they needed a freeze unit desperately because the meat they stored was crawling with maggots we decided to donate a deepfreeze. Conny ordered the necessity, with a capacity of 400 litre, and had arranged that this was delivered at the shelter right away. The people working at the shelter were very happy with this.

26 July, The event "Dag van mens en dier"(Day of humans and animals) in Dordrecht
This year it will be the anniversary. The sixtieth "dag van mens en dier" in the area of the Biesbosch in Dordrecht.
Horses, pony's, parrots and dogs, it will be hard to not miss anything. Enjoyable shows, booths and fun. The SDB will be there for the third time and we hope you will be there too. We look forward to it.

31 August, "Buitenlandse Hondendag"(Foreign dogs day) in Zaandam
Everyone who has a dog from outside of Holland....
Everyone who cares for a stray animal wherever it is.....
Everyone who is interested in helping stray dogs....
Everyone who does not own a dog, pedigree dog or cat.....
Everyone who would like to know more....

So really everyone is welcome to join us at this event called the Buitenlandse Hondendag in Zaandam. The SDB will be there too, with their volunteers and a booth. We hope many people will be there and it will turn out to be a lovely day.

"Rasloze dag" (day for dogs with no pedigree)the 6th of September in the Wouwse Plantage
This year the SDB will be at the lustrum edition of the day that is especially for dogs without a pedigree. Everyone that owns a dog is welcome to join us and we hope to contribute a little to this fun day. Website of this event: www.raslozedag.nl

Thanks to people who support us through the adoption on a distance and the sponsoring of doghouses we are able to offer a lot of help to the shelter in Orasje. Tanja, who is responsible for all the activities around this project, is always keeping people posted on the latest news on "their" dog in the shelter and on the houses built thanks to them. The past trip Tanja has spend a lot of time studying the sponsored dogs and many pictures were taken during this week. So it will not take long before everyone will receive an update on their dog(s).

Meanwhile we have returned from our trip to Bosnia for more than two weeks. It was a special trip where we have accomplished a lot in the shelter of Orasje. This time we were a group of 21 volunteers and the last Thursday and Friday we were joined by Alexander and Alisa, who decided to go to Orasje for a couple of days.

We had nothing to complain, especially when it is about the weather, sunny and pleasantly warm.

DIY team
The DIY team had an extreme challenge this week, which was placing an entire new fence around the present shelter and their new piece of land. In total they have been able to put 260 metres of fencing, 2 sliding doors and 2 entrance doors in place.

Jusuf, Peter, Eerhard, Marco, Fred, Rob, John, Marino and two Bosnian employees have worked their buts of to finidh it in time.

They became so fanatic that every volunteer had to be on the shelter at eight in the morning, and left not before six in the evening. But they did finish the job, the only thing that has to be done is making an extra concrete frame so the dogs cannot dig their ways out. After this they can start to make the new piece of land suitable for using this to give the dogs much more space to run around.

There was also a small DIY team in the shelter itself. Maartje, Hilde and Ronald painted all the beams of the wooden cabin that has to be built. This wooden cabin was donated by one of our benefactors and was transported to Bosnia. The paintjob is almost done and Fred is now busy trying to solve the puzzle of building the cabin in September, because we miss the building plans. Svjetlana cannot wait until the cabin is ready, because this will be her new office.

Medical team
The medical team consisting out of Mirjam, Willeke, Inge and Henriet have sterilised and castrated 60 animals during the week. Next to these they also performed some other surgery's. This time more people have made their appearance at the shelter compared to last year. Mainly friends and acquaintances of Svjetlana and Jusuf, people who visited us last year but for whom the decision to act was too hard that time. This is a big step, and we hope they will inform their friends and everyone they know to convince them to do the same. We did have a calling on the radio to drop by for free, but only one person showed up.

Assistance for Svjetlana
Lilian, Cokkie and Winanda devoted themselves the entire week to the daily job of cleaning and caring for the dogs. They have cleaned the pens every single day, they removed droppings from the shelter terrain, fed the dogs etc. The intention was to give Svjetlana a week of complete rest, but it is hard to keep her from working, she is literally in her system to care for the dogs and we must be fair, her presence is crucial when it comes to getting the dogs back to their kennels.

You can make an attempt by putting the door open and calling the dogs, but the chance of getting a dog in by itself is very small, unless it is Svjetlana who is calling them.

"Jack-of-all-trades"- team
Wilma, Suze, Veerle and myself (Tanja) have been busy in the entire shelter this week, where someone would need our help we would come immediately. Wilma gave several interviews and gave the mayor a tour around the shelter. It was very special to hear him thanking us for all we have done and all the supplies that were given by the Dutch people.

Suze made sure there was plenty of drinks and food every day and made a new facility to put all the screws and tools.

Car
We had collected money in 2006 to buy a car for the shelter in Tuzla. Because of all the problems in Tuzla we never did buy a car, so the money was still waiting on a savings account. And after building such a bond with Orasje, and the Yugo which is the car Jusuf drove is breaking down, we bought a second hand Caddy this week.
Queens day
During our national holiday Queens day, we were in Bosnia, but the day did not go by without something special. In the morning the shelter was decorated with all kinds of orange festoons and in the evening we went out for dinner with Svjetlana and Jusuf. Marco and Veerle had ordered special t-shirts with a print in front: Svjetlana's day. When Svjetlana arrived at the hotel she was very surprised to see 21 silly Dutch people wearing orange t-shirts, and some of them even having orange hair or little flags on their faces.

It became a very special evening. Dzjana, one of the interpreters of the shelter, joined us in the restaurant together with her kids dance-group. She convinced the kids to perform a dance for us. The room was filled with joy and happiness.

To celebrate the anniversary of 1 year of cooperation with Svjetlana and Jusuf we gave them a photo book with pictures and stories of the dogs that we brought to Holland from their shelter, and found their new home in our country.

All these stories were translated to English by Suze and after that Alisa and Elvira translated them to Bosnian. It was successful surprise for Svjetlana and Jusuf.

All other things
By this we would like to thank once again all the adopters on a distance and all the people who support us financially for their contributions, because without you we would not be able to do the work in Bosnia that we are doing now!

It was an amazing week for all of us, so much has happened and that we could write an entire book about all of this, but this is not possible, so Fred made a special report on our trip. On the page of the reports you can find a lot of pictures this in the map of 08-04 Orasje.

All the pictures are already exchanged among the volunteers, so we will write the updates on the dogs on a distance soon!

We would like to say a special thanks to the people who supported the SDB, and through that directly also the dogs in Bosnia, by sponsoring a doghouse.

Suze and Fred made a beautiful sign with all the names on it from people who donated a doghouse. Thanks to these contributions we can make a lot of the jobs done in Orasje.

So everyone who supports the SDB financially as well as with supplies and materials...... THANK YOU SO MUCH, on behalf of the dogs in Orasje and Bosnia!! We cannot say this too many times!

23-05-08 All sorts of news

SDB has been on the Bosnian Television

It has been a couple of weeks already since we returned from our trip. Several volunteers are planning to go the end of July to Orasje.
You can find all the pictures and reports from this trip on our website. Fred made a special photo and video report which is published on YouTube. This “report” gives a really good impression on the entire week and will take you with us to Orasje. You can find the link on the page “reports”.
During our week in Orasje a camera crew of the federal television company came by. We had already returned to Holland when the item made was broadcasted, so we were not able to see this. Fortunately the medium Internet exists, and we were after all able to watch it. I am so proud that this was on the national television, and I am even more proud of all the volunteers that do make the difference in this world, and it doesn’t matter how small or big their contribution is!!
Of course the broadcast is in Bosnian, but the images speak for themselves. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZGvDi9UcgI

WSPA Member

After having to fill in loads of question, handing over our annual reports and all sorts of other information we were finally approved to become an official member of the WSPA. We are extremely proud of this, because there are not many organisations which are approved in Holland. We hope to accomplish many beautiful things with our cooperation with WSPA.

Educational booklets printed

We have 5000 booklets ready to be distributed among schools in Bosnia. We are starting to explore the best way to handle this, so we are sure we reach the schools and their children. The books are meant to be as an educational material for kids that are around ten years old. It is full of questions about strays and how to deal with them the right way. The books have a design that is pleasant for children, with a game in the centre page and a certificate in the back. We hope, and we will do our utmost, to make schools, municipalities and people all around enthusiastic about this booklet.

Annual Report 2007

Soon our annual report of 2007 will be published on our website, and I can tell you already that we of course are proud to have this also.

Wilma de Joode

06-05-08 Back from our trip to Orasje

The week started with raining cats and dogs, so we were a bit anxious because when it would keep going on like this, we would not be able to do a lot. But the second day the sun showed up, and it stayed with us for the rest of the week. It took some time before everyone found her/his spot in the shelter, but after that everything went just fine.

Over 60 dogs and cats were operated on. From castrations to amputating a leg with a Pekinese. From sterilisations to an abortion with a dog and a cat. Dogs that live in the shelter, but fortunately also dogs and cats from people around Orasje. Most people have no clue about the benefits of castration and sterilisation. So we provide everyone with a full explanation and the were all happy and relieved about taking the step to perform the surgery.

We installed 260 meters of fence. We dug everything by hand. We made all the concrete manually and placed every stake ourselves. A beautiful entrance gate, galvanised, 2 meter high fence, what does a shelter need more. What a job the handymen did in Orasje!

Almost the entire wooden cabin was painted. Day after day some of us painted to get it finished. It will be quiet a puzzle to figure out the way to put it together. But I am sure this will work out fine.

Every day we helped cleaning the kennels. Giving the dogs the necessary attention. Helping Svjetlana having it a bit less hard. Making the lives of the dogs a little bit easier. It was clear that dogs that were a bit shy at the beginning of the week, were more relaxed and approachable at the end of the week. The dogs that were to afraid to be petted at the beginning of the week, begged for a hug at the end of the week, sometimes careful. This is a joyful experience.

The major visited us again this year, he was very positive about the way the shelter looked, and thanked us for our support and materials. We of course hope the municipality will support us by helping with the installation of the electricity to and in the shelter. Last year they donated the extra ground, so we hope for a "present" this year.

We are going to see together with the municipality how to reach the schools with the educational program. The educational booklets are finished, we are very happy with this achievement. 5000 booklets have been printed and will be distributed among the schools in Bosnia. Hopefully this will make a difference in the life of the animals too.

There were journalists at the shelter, and we were filmed by a camera-crew of the National Television.

We have bought a car. We had made a reservation for this and it was about time to buy a car for the shelter. It ended up to be a VW Caddy.

It was a week where many things happened. And it is too much to tell you everything. The pictures will speak for themselves, some of the pictures you can already find in the gallery. We will add more through out time. We will of course also have reports made by the people who accompanied us.

Dear all of you that came along, Thanks so much for all your devotion, warmth, involvement, hard work and friendliness!!

Tomorrow, 25 April, we leave together with a group of 21 to help the shelter in Orasje. This is the biggest group ever.
We are all looking forward to it. And we will do our utmost to complete as many jobs as possible.
This week will mostly be about castrating and sterilizing, building the fence, pooring the concrete, picking up the droppings, cleaning and taking care of all the dogs.
We will of course write an extensive report on our journey when we have returned to Holland, as you are all used to see.
Because of the fact that almost all our permanent volunteers will join us this week, no mails will be answered. After the third of may we will reply your emails.
If you need us urgently please call 06-46198579

20-03-08 All sorts of news

Easter market 24 March
Marco and Veerle will do their utmost to sell as much stuff as possible at the eater market in Brunssum on Monday the 24th of March. The benefits will be for the SDB. If you would like more info on the event you can check www.euregiobazaar.nl Maybe you will be visitor number 75.000!!

Interview Radio Ridderkerk 25 March
Tuesday 25 March Cokkie and Wilma will be interviewed by a reporter of Radio Ridderkerk. By this way we hope to reach more people that might be willing to donate something, or are willing to do something for us. If you want to listen to the interview, it will be broadcasted from around 10.10 until 10.30 in the morning, you can receive this through www.radioridderkerk.nl
If you are not able to listen on that specific moment, it will be available through “Uitzending Gemist”.

Article on Betsy the dog in a local newspaper of Bihac
Elvira found a mother dog a couple of months ago. Betsy, who had 4 pups. The shelter in Orasje was packed, and Elvira was not able to take care of them because she has a full time job. Luckily Jelena and Agneza were willing to shelter Betsy and her babies.
Jelena and Agneza are two young girls from Croatia that work hard for all the stray dogs over there. At their own home there are at least 10 dogs living and just as much cats. Many dogs found a way to their new homes through these girls by taking them of the streets, fostering them and re-homing them.
A couple of days before Elvira would bring Betsy and her pups to Croatia, Betsy was hit by a car. She was hiding for almost two days. Fortunately Betsy showed up, and she was brought to Jelena and Agneza by Elvira.
Betsy clearly showed agony created by the collision, and she was operated in Croatia to cure her back leg. Unfortunately two of the pups got sick soon after all this, it was canine distemper. They tried everything to cure the little ones, but it didn’t work out. They were both euthanized because or else they would have had a horrible way of dying. We are happy that Snjeska and Kelly, the two other remaining pups, were healthy.
At this moment, some time later, Betsy is doing fine, and Snjeska and Kelly are in Holland. Betsy is still in Croatia with Jelena and Agneza and had undergone several operations on her beck leg, it seems to be alright now. Eventually we are hoping to find a home in Holland for Betsy also.
A local newspaper in Bihac(Bosnia) printed an article about Betsy. Elvira got in contact with them, and made sure they printed the story. This story shows that stray-dogs are not violent, ferocious or anything else that people think. This story shows that stray-dogs are special and that there are still people that care about these animals.

Marco and Veerle on their trip
Marco and Veerle went to Orasje and came back with 6 dogs. The visit to Orasje was, again, a big success. You can find their report on that category of the website. Pictures of their trip are to be find on the website under pictures. Marca and Veerle……you did a great job!
Linda back after one month of Orasje
Linda is back from her month of working in Orasje. It was the first time someone was going by herself for a longer period to Bosnia to help out. It was a bit exciting, as well as for Linda as for the SDB. Thanks to Linda it was a huge success, Linda, we would like to thank you very much for your devotion and hard work!!!! You did an excellent job. You can find her story under our reports.

Visit to Croatia and Bosnia by Conny and Wilma
Conny (foster parent) and Wilma have paid a visit to Croatia and Bosnia. It was a short but intense trip. In Croatia they visited Jelena and Agneza. These two ladies help Elvira(volunteer SDB in Bihac, Bosnia) with fostering dogs and they assist a shelter in Croatia by re-homing dogs and also for the shelter they foster. Wilma and Conny have been at that shelter also.

Next to visiting the shelter they went to Bihac, Bosnia for a day. Elvira organised a get together with a variety of people that already do something or are willing to do something for the stray dogs in and around Bihac. Many people showed up, and all sorts of topics were discussed. We all had a positive feeling about it.

It was a very special weekend we had in Croatia and Bosnia. We have seen, talked, and done a lot and it was worth all our energy. You can find a short report on this trip made by Conny on our website.

Trip April
We are getting closer. The last week of April we are going to the shelter of Orasje with a group of volunteers to do the necessary things. The fence has been ordered, and we hope it is finished in time so we can put the fence around, hopefully, the entire shelter, including the new piece of land. There is some deliberation going on about the wooden house and the tin shed.

Also a medical crew will join us that will sterilize and castrate the whole week. We hope that people from Orasje will bring in their animals to get the necessary medical care.

The group of people that is going in April is the largest ever. We are going to do our utmost to make it an excellent week.

18 February 08 Cokkie as an extra at the aftercare team
Because more and more dogs are coming to Holland to find a new home, it is becoming too much for Willeke to do the aftercare by herself. Cokkie will start doing this too. All the owners of the dogs that came from Orasje will stay in contact with Cokkie. She has send her first email to inform already.

Tuzla articles in newspaper Bosnia
Today an article was printed where it was stated that there is an excessive amount of stray dogs and they are planning to shoot the dogs. We will let the municipality and the newspaper by sending them faxes what we think of all this. We will try to shake things up. If it will contribute we don't know, but we cannot accept it and do nothing.

The English translation of the article:
Article published in Dnevni Avaz (daily news from BiH) on 18.02.2008.
There is no space in Tuzla's animal shelter any more…therefore Municipal Service for housing and Utilities will start to purchase rifles for performing of euthanasia…
Stray dogs presents big problem in Tuzla's Municipality. Lot of people had negative experience with groups of stray dogs attacking on them. Day by day there are more and more doggies. So far this problem was approached on two different ways: the first one to place them into the animal shelter and second one to kill them when there is too many and there is not space in the animal shelter. Than they hire utility service "Komunalac" to "take care" of the stray dogs. The big problem is that nobody wants to do this job anymore (to kill dogs) therefore it's difficult to find somebody- said by Aid Berbic, deputy of Municipal Department for Housing and Utilities.
Capacity of animal shelter is 100 animals what is not enough to take care of all stray dogs. Service for Utilities needs to purchase rifle for euthanasia so this problem can be solved on the more human way than to kill them with hunter's rifles. All Municipalities of Tuzla's Canton are facing the same problem.
Bad experience of Mr. Ilic (citizen of Tuzla)

Mr. Ilic is the one who was attacked by the group of stray dogs. While going to work wild group attacked him from behind and he was fortunate to survive this attack only with some scratches and bites.

Containers donated
Hilda did it! Twenty big waste containers were donated for Orasje. These containers are excellent for keeping food, and they will be used a lot. You did a great job Hilda!!

Regarding the shelter, I was surprised with the way it looks now, you can really tell there is some investment put in there…We saw the storage and it is really well done. It is big and all the stuff is nicely and neatly stored in there.

In the little part there is like a room with a table and chairs and a wooden stow for heating. The only problem is that there are still some mice that somehow get inside; they are trying to solve it.

Moreover, I noticed there are much more threes in the middle area, there are changes in the protective sheets on the kennels. Looks really colourful because they are in red and other bright colours.

The storage is full of blankets and food and it is clean and smells nice, nothing like moist or anything similar to that. All the kennels are clean and blankets dry in the dog houses. We had a great time with the dogs.

Jusuf showed us the place where he wants to construct medical room for surgeries so you guys don't have to do it outside on a table. Svjetlana got you the approval that Dutch vets are able to work in Orasje without any problem. She can't wait for April. Now she realizes what you were saying. Sterilization/castration is the only solution.

They told us about the plans for the fence and the gate. They are planning to use the old fence for dividing areas in the shelter so that the dogs could on fact spend the whole way outside and they would be sorted in groups. Sounds really good how they imagined it.

Linda, oh, she is so nice and modest. We talked to her about everything, she told us about the work she does as stewardess, how she came here and will be for 3,5 weeks and she likes it very much.

10 febr 08
News from Linda from Orasje

I will write a quick report on my adventures in Bosnia. I keep trying to get my pictures on the internet, but unfortunately I did nor succeed yet and the computer quits every time I try.
I have been here for a week now, and I have to admit I am settling down quite easy.

It is a totally different world compared to ours, and it is really strange living with people who I am not able to understand!!

At the shelter everything is going okay. It is hard work, but the wagging of dog tails and the slobbery kisses after a hard day of work makes it all worth it.

Unfortunately I will bring 10 extra kilos of bodyweight back to Holland……..I am being stuffed with food, and they don’t understand the meaning of the word NO.
Yesterday Elvira from Bihac paid a visit, a city approx 5 hours away from Orasje, and she had a nice way of explaining their habits……… “that’s what we do... we feed people.”

Linda

10 febr ‘08
Get together of Volunteers SDB

Sunday the day had finally arrived, the get together of volunteers.
It was a fun happening, and really nice to see eachother. “New” and “Old” volunteers, all mixed.

Esther and Tom, we thank you for your hospitality and the fact you opened up your home for all of us.
It was partly because of you guys and the superb food a wonderful day, and worth repeating!

Everyone that was present, thank you for coming!! We will do this again this summer!

9 Febr ‘08
Elvira brings pups to Orasje
Elvira and some people in and around Bihac are taking care of more and more dogs. Many time they find pups that were dumped. The past Saturday Elvira brought three pups to Orasje where they will be looked after. Soon pictures from her visit to Orasje will follow.

Marco en Veerle naar Orasje
19 February
Marco and Veerle will travel to Orasje to spend some days working in the shelter. They will bring back some dogs to Holland also. The report of their trip and the pictures made will be published on this website after their return!

Last year we were approached by Linda van den Engel, a stewardess. She was eager to work at the shelter in Bosnia for one month.
After having a conversation with Linda, and some deliberation with Svjetlana, we decided to give her the opportunity.
Yesterday Linda arrived in Bosnia, Orasje, to help Svjetlana and Yusuf with all the work that has to be done in the shelter, for the entire month of February.
When I spoke to her this morning she told me that she was impressed with all the dogs in the shelter(over one hundred at this time) and told me that Svjetlana and Yusuf did an excellent job organising everything.

It happens more and more that materials are donated to use in e.g. the shelter in Orasje.
Cokkie went to pick up some special parts for making kennels and some food the past weekend in Moerkapelle, that was offered by Jet.

Dutchy Puppy received food from the Dutch Animal protection society in Den Hague. And we got food from several locations ourselves, like Utrecht and Wijk bij Duurstede.
We are almost ready to have our next transport to Bosnia, because the containers are getting swamped again.

Elvira found some kindred spirits as it comes to loving animals in and close to Bihac.
So she is no longer by herself.

More and more pups and mature dogs are found on the streets. Elvira even has one of them at home, as an extension of her ‘family’.
At this moment there are several pups that are temporarily in home-situations, and there are lots of pups living on the streets that are taken care after by Elvira and some other people.
Three of them will probably brought to the shelter in Orasje this month.
Elvira got in contact with other people and a couple of dogs and pups are re-homed by the help of Jelena, a young Bosnian woman, with good contacts in Austria and Germany.

SDB reviewed the design for the new shelter in Bihac that is planned to be built.
A lot has to be changed if this can become a good and efficient shelter, at this moment it appears to be more something like a vet clinic.
SDB asked Chris Lawrence for help, he works for Dog’s Trust.
We hope to give a good advice to the Vet in Bihac that wants to start this shelter, an advice based on the input from Chris and others.
The municipality is willing to support the shelter and reserved money for making the plans.
We will try to monitor this as good as possible and help wherever we can.

In case you planned to pay a visit to the event the “Huisdierendagen” in event centre Rai, this is cancelled. This happened because of lack of applications.

11 jan 08 The beginning of a new year
New owners, thank you so much!!
During the first days of this new year a couple of dogs got a chance for a new live at the homes of new owners. Re-homing the dogs is going well and I think it is very special that the new owners and their dogs fit in that good. In the world of the saving of animals and all the horrible things we experience, the new owners are salve on our wounds, because we find a lot of wonderful people. Dear all of you, thank you for given ‘our’ dogs a good and safe live.

Elvira is lobbying
Elvira is busy trying to gather as many people as possible to start a shelter in Bihac.
She has already arranged two meetings, and some people have shown up there.
Especially young people are interested to help to solve the problems with stray dogs.
Some of them seem to be very motivated and Elvira thinks she found a couple of persons that are seriously willing and able to help in Bihac.

Recently the NoKill policy started in Bihac. That of course is excellent, but this is not so great if we don’t have a shelter to give the dogs a safe place to stay and where we can perform castrations.
Without the shelter and the castrations the dogs will breed, and the problems will only get bigger.
A lot of work ahead on us in Bihac. The municipality admits there has to be a shelter, and the veterinarian clinic and municipality asked the SDB to support this.
We would like to do this, but only when this is all planned properly. We will be anxious to see what will happen in Bihac.
To be continued

Educational booklets.
Next to the activities around the shelter, Elvira has been busy with the educational booklets that are translated to the Bosnian language. We received the offers to print them, and we will try to find companies or foundation that will take part in paying the costs, so we can print lots of them.
We will let the booklets print in Bosnia. We are planning to hand out the first set of booklets in April in a school in Orasje.
But when we come to that point, we will inform you.

Suze in ING magazines
Our volunteers will do anything to get the SDB in magazines. Every magazine that is printed in a company will do to tell about the SDB and the work we do. This time Suze was is two magazines of the ING.
Artikel 1 pdf van Suze
Artikel 2 pdf van Suze

Orasje
We have spoken about the priorities of the shelter in Orasje during the latest board meeting.
Do we have to fix the fencing first, or is it better to arrange electricity.
A new fence has to be placed around the old and the new piece of land. The cost will be at least 7000 euro. This will be a fence that will stand lots of decennia and that will not have to painted over and over again and collapses after a short period. This kind of amount of money is huge for such a small foundation.
Also electricity had to put in place, and we have received an pricy offer for that too. The shelter is situated far from the main road, and therefore the electricity has to bridge a long distance to reach the shelter. We are trying to find a cheaper way to do this, because the money we are talking about is extreme.

We have to make decisions because we can’t do it all at once. We decided to do the fence first, because we have the aggregate, and that will do for now. We will try to put the fence in place before April, this will be done by a Bosnian company.
In April we will be working with a big group of volunteers in Orasje, and we hope to be able to help getting the fence ready.
But we are talking about Bosnia, so we will be sure of everything after our week over there.

The new storage is being used already. The materials and food that was brought in December are stored in this new building. At this moment the construction work is inactive because Yusuf had a hernia, he will be operated in January so we hope he will be better soon, and he will be able to do things he likes to do.

There is also e new area where the pups stay that have been brought is the past months. Because small puppy dogs are growing all the time!!!

20 dec 07 Looking back on the happenings in 2007

It was the year where we had our own television documentary.

The year where we had to distance ourselves from Tuzla and the dogs we all loved/and still love so dearly.

The year where we gave some Bosnian dogs a new opportunity in Holland.
The year we were joined by new volunteers, but also had to say goodbye to others.

The year where we designed and produced our own t-shirts.
The year we started supporting Orasje.

It was a stormy year with a lot of emotions. It was the year when it became clear that we form a solid team and that we can cope with many setbacks, accomplish a lot together, in spite of the fact we don't always agree upon decisions. So many things happened during 2007, to many to list them all, 2007 was a year to remember.

By this I would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone that is involved with the SDB for their support and help.

All the companies and people that donated money or aid supplies, and perform activities for free like printing folders.

The veterinarians that support us again and again, and give the dogs the best care possible.

I wish you happiness, all good things, love, confidence, courage and fun in 2008.

We would like to thank everyone for sending cards and emails. We are unfortunately not able to reply them all personally by lack of time.

These are a couple of the wishes we received:

Thursday 20th of December we are having a party! At that day Baloutje is living with me for two years. Two years ago she was the best Christmas present ever, and she still is!
I had never had one second regret of adopting her.
And neither has she as you can see on the picture! Balou has brought me so much joy.
Together with her we wish all the Bosnian dogs and their owners a merry Christmas and all good things for 2008. Balou says WOEF!

Hi there!
Just a small message concerning Victor. He recuperated from the surgery and he is doing great. He is now showing a lot of juvenile behaviour (provoking Nova and eating everything that is not fixed!!!) but during the puppy course he behaved like a model dog! He grew up to be beautiful, with long paws and an amazing sweet face.

The transport arrived

The transport arrived properly in Orasje. Because the materials had to be unloaded from the truck very quickly, it was getting dark, there are not many pictures. Everything is now at the storage in the shelter. Svjetlana has send us this email:

Please allow me to thank you and all the donors for the goods that arrived in the army truck. It is all so great and I am so happy as I know that these dogs will never be hungry again!

Best,
Svjetlana

Today a truck, loaded with all sorts of food and materials, left for Orasje.
The past Thursday the truck first went to Harskamp, to pick up a lot of materials donated to the SDB. Among other things we got refrigerators, lights to hang outdoors, heaters and kitchen working tops.
Cees, owner of Bika, and the father of Cees, we would like to thank you both, it is amazing!!

The past Friday we loaded the truck, and I can ensure you, there was not a tiny spot left to be filled. We used the entire space.
For the last period we received a lot of supplies and food, so much we were not even able to transport it all this time. The most important goods, in particular food, is being transported anyway. We hope it all goes well, and that the truck will be unloaded next Friday in Orasje.
Of course we will publish pictures when the truck successfully accomplished its job.
We would like to thank Sonja Deckers for arranging the food.
We would also like to thank www.greenheart.nl for the three pallets of food we could pick up for free. This is excellent!! Thank you Ben.

NoKill seminar
At the 1st and 2nd of December we had the seminar organised by NoKill Europe.
You can find a full report on www.nokill.eu . It was a remarkable event for Willeke, Anita, Peter and Wilma to attend this the whole weekend, and to experience it by organising and watching it this close.
Also the volunteers who joined us the second day were impressed.
We would like to do this again some day. We do think it is a shame that so little interest was shown by all the other foundations that fight for the foreign animal rights.
Many foundations state that they support the NoKill principles, and they say that sterilizing is the only solution, but they do not show up to learn more about this during these days.
We hope that there will be more foundations represented the next time!

Short trips
Meanwhile Tanja, Eerhard, Marco, Veerle, Lilian, Suze and Fred returned from their trips to Bosnia, and several dogs came along with them back to Holland. These dogs are now staying with their foster families.
The shelter in Orasje is packed, because a lot of mama-dogs and their pups and many pups without a mother are found and brought to the shelter.
Svjetlana and Yusuf had 19 dogs in their own home at one point in time, because there was no space in the shelter.
It is wonderful that the shelter is now getting more name known, but the dark side is that more dogs are now dumped there. People feel sorry for putting the pups on the streets, so they bring the dogs close to the shelter, and it will all end up fine, they think!
Yusuf's health is not okay at this moment, so most of the work has to be done by Svjetlna, it is too much to do this all by herself.
In the shelter there are now approximately 100 dogs.
All the construction work is stopped now because of the poor health of Yusuf.
We hope that he will feel better soon, and that they will find people who can help them with all the work that has to be done on a daily basis.
It is hard to find employees that are willing to work in the shelter.
We hope this will change when everything is build properly.

This morning Peter left with a trailer on the way to Lienden.
Suze got in contact with a company that sold dogfood, and we were allowed to pick up 3 pallets of food. This is excellent.
The truck will leave for Bosnia soon, and we are happy to get so much food, because the truck is able to take it all to Bosnia.
The upcoming winter the dogs are assured of having enough food.

Veerle and Marco returned on the 25th of November from their trip to Orasje.
You can read their report of the report-page of our website.
At the 26th of November another job was waiting for them!
300 kg of dog food had to be brought from Betticourt to the storage in Moerdijk.
When they arrived in Betticourt there was a lot more than the agreed 300 kilograms.
It was more than their car could handle.
So to be sure they asked Valerie if all the food was really given to the SDB.
They were given a heartfelt 'yes'.
Fortunately they were able to use a trailer by Valerie. During loading the trailer they were counting, and it was a huge amount of 825 kg.
The Bosnian dogs and the SDB are really happy with this immense gesture.
Monique and Valerie, again thanks for this enormous load of food.

Cokkie had been very busy collecting all sorts of materials. Winanda also made a lot of effort to collect the necessary supplies. Cokkie picked up all the stuff at Winanda’s place, and she arrived in a fully loaded van at the storage in Moerdijk..
At the 28th of November Rob left early in the morning to pick up three pallets full of food and other aid supplies at Sonja Deckers.

With a heavenly loaded trailer Rob arrived at the storage in Moerdijk. Together with Wilma he drove of to the storage in Dordrecht, to get the supplies out of there and take them to Moerdijk, so it would be easier to load the truck for the upcoming transport.

New trip in April '08
We are making arrangements for our next trip to Orasje in April 2008. We have major plans, constructing as well as castrating and sterilizing.
There is a shed to be build, a wooden log cabin to be assembled and I am not even thinking of the kennels that have to be build, the concrete that has to be poured and the dog houses we want to make.
But the biggest challenge is to get people of Orasje motivated to neuter their cats and dogs by our vets.
Svjetlana already received multiple requests from the locals if we would be able to neuter their animal, so we will see what we can do in April.
Anyway, we look forward to support Svjetlana and Jusuf in this way, and we will help in anyway we can.

Educational Booklet
Right now Elvira is getting in contact with printing offices in Bosnia to check out where we van print the booklets, against the best quality and price.
Dogs trust helped us getting these booklets. They made these booklets especially for kids and their teachers in Romania, to educate them about stray dogs and the problem around stray animals.
Elvira and Alisa translated the booklet to the Bosnian language and Dogs trust assembled it with the right layout.
By this way a beautiful book is created. There is an example to use by kids, and one for their teachers. All sorts of facts are in there, and the problems are explained in a playful, but serious way. All the things that are true and not true about stray dogs, and how to deal with these animals in the bes way.
The teachers get a book with all sort of tasks which can be given to the children.
We are planning to distribute the booklets among the children at the schools of Orasje.
We hope we can show the people by this way that the problem with stray animals can be solved in an acceptable way and that stray dogs are not horrible creatures.
The children are our future, do we have to focus on them!

Hilda visiting a well known lady called Imca Marina
December the 2nd Hilda visited Imca Marina after receiving an invitation after the election of most attentive person from Groningen.
Hilda ended second. A small trip was organised for all the contestants, and the trip was a visit to Imca Marina. During the election Imca stated she supported the SDB and would become a donator. We of course hope Imca will not forget the SDB.

Tanja and Eerhard arrived safely, together with five dogs. Tanja has written a report on this trip, you can read this on our report-page.
The dogs that came to Holland have been brought to their foster families, and they are all doing very well.

Tanja and Eerhard, you did a GREAT job!!!!

These volunteers will leave for Orasje tomorrow, they will pay a short visit to Orasje and bring back some dogs.
In the report Tanja made you can read about Mickey, this is one of the dogs that will be brought to Holland. This is a Pekinese dog that has been brought to the shelter and that was bitten by another dog. His eye is badly injured and it will probably be necessary to be removed. We rarely bring a dog to Holland that has medical problems, but this is an exception, because it would not be possible to treat this in Bosnia.
Of course pictures and reports will be published when Marco, Veerle and Lilian return from Bosnia.

Elvira has attended this conference for three days and has met many different people, from several countries.
Next to Elvira also Jelena joined the conference. Recently Jelena became more active in Bosnia for the SDB. Elvira says: “I am glad that I met with all those people and it was quite interesting to watch them and read their behaviour/interaction. All in all, I can positively say that it was useful and interesting.”

Elvira and Jelena hope to be able to achieve more in the future with the contacts they made during the conference. But one thing is clear, it is not easy to cooperate in the right way, even though we are working to reach the same goals.

There were a lot of people joining the conference. The participants made the trip to Berlin from different countries. Italy, Spain, Poland, Romania and many more countries were represented.

Tanja, Eerhard, Willeke, Peter and I represented the SDB. Nathalie Klinge and Eelco, her boyfriend, participated also. Nathalie is working for FPCC in Romania among other organisations.
Last year we also joined this conference(after we were told about it by Nathalie) and we enjoyed it very much. There were a lot of organisations, which were involved in animal welfare in the eastern part of Europe, just like us, so we decided to visit the conference again.

When we arrived we immediately saw a lot of familiar faces, and we were given a warm welcome by the people of Dogs Trust.
When we were handed the program it was clear that it would be some busy days.
Workshops, a tour around the shelter of Berlin, lectures etc. We would not be able to get bored these 3 days.

We were reunited with some of the people we had met last year.
One of them is Urshka. Urshka fights for animal rights in Slovenia.
And also Anita form Kroatia. Anita originally comes from Germany, but moved to Kroatia years ago and makes out a case for the animals in Kroatia.

Dorothea Friz, a veterinarian, was there too. Dorothea is a specialist in castrating animals as early as possible, and has been working in Italy for many years.

We also met “new” organisations. Sara Turetta from Romania.
Sara is founder of a foundation called Canibucarest.
This foundation is supported financially by Dutchy Puppy.

People from Russia, China and Japan participated. There were people visiting the conference from more than 30 countries. We talked and talked until we all had husky voices, just to get in contact with as many organisations as possible, and to catch up with the people we already knew.

This time, next to us, there were also two Dutch veterinarians at the seminar, and through them we got in contact with Ted Brewer. Ted appeared to have experience with Bosnia, and he had heard about the SDB. Ted was eager to hear our story, so we had dinner with him and his friend Beth.
Ted is very enthusiastic about the SDB and is happy to write an article about us.
Ted is a writer for the Best Friends Animal Society in America.
This is a huge organisation, who manages their own shelter in America and is trying to fight animal abuse worldwide.
We talked for hours with Ted. And after arriving on Wednesday, we were surprised to see an article on the Best Friends website the next Friday. You can read this article on: http://network.bestfriends.org/international/news/

This week Ted promised us that the SDB would get a donation of $1500 from Best Friends, and of course we are very happy with this gesture. Who knows what the future will bring us.

The three days went really fast. Before we knew it was over.
We did the T-touch workshop that Sarah tought.
We attended the lecture of Analeise Smillie of Animals Asia Foundation. There were horrible pictures of dogs that are caught and are butchered alive. We saw positive result and pictures of dogs that were saved by this foundation and who live now a happy life. We experienced the fact that this foundation started out small, and now years later, accomplished so much.
That gives us strength!

We can not mention all the things we did and see, but we can state that it was a very successful conference!

We would like to emphasize that it is important to join this for all the foundations next year.
Not because you are given tools, this is not the way it is working. But to get in contact with lots of people who manage shelters in countries where animals have no rights, and are willing to do anything that is necessary to help these stray-animals.

Elvira at the conference held by the WSPA in Sarajevo
From 13 until 15 November a conference organised by WSPA is being held in Sarajevo.
Elvira will be representing the SDB. We hope she will get in contact with lots of people, and that the outcome of the conference will be positive for all the stray animals in Bosnia.

Design Bosnian legislation for animal welfare
The Bosnian government is working on a legislation concerning animal welfare.
Organisations working in Bosnia are free to review this design and give their feedback.
Elvira and Jelena, one of our new volunteers in Bosnia, made 10 pages full of comments.
The design counted many pages with a huge amount of articles and almost every article was commented. Elvira and Jelena used the knowledge from legislation of other countries and by that we came to "our comment".

Meanwhile we have send the document back to Bosnia. We got an immediate reaction, where we were thanked for our review, and that they would use this, together with the feedbacks of all the other parties involved, to eventually get o a new animal welfare law.

Hopefully the problems in Bosnia around the government at this moment, because of the resignation of the president, will be solved soon, so everyone can go on governing the country and draw up laws.

Short trips to Orasje in November
This month 7 volunteers, will travel in 3 separate groups, to Bosnia.
New issues will be discussed with Svjetlana and Yusuf.
The main goal of the trip is checking out the shelter, how things are progressing, and a couple of dogs will come to Holland.

Of course pictures and reports will be published when everyone returned safely from their trip.

Transport of collected aid-supplies to Bosnia
On the 11th of December it will happen again!
A truck will leave for Bosnia to transport all the collected aid-supplies.
We are doing our best to collect as much as possible at the last moment.
So, if you have anything for us that is suitable for Bosnia, please let us know, we will figure a way out to get this to the storage.

On the 7th of december we are going to load the truck. We hope this will be packed!

Urgent call for Pups in distress
A Dutch company which has a furniture factory in Bosnia phoned us recently.
One of the owners spotted seven pups walking along the road, and he could not leave them to their selves, he knew they would not survive.

He decided to take them to the factory.
He phoned us to ask of we could do anything to help the pups.
Meanwhile Svjetlana was in contact with the factory and the pups will be brought to the shelter soon. The shelter is packed at the moment, but the pups need our help.

Svjetlana is not sure where the pups will stay, but as always she will find a solution. If necessary she will take them home. We hope the story will have a happy end, we will do our utmost to help them.

30 Oktober 2007

Hilda van Dijk is one of the volunteers, she lives in Groningen. She tries to promote the SDB in her region as much as possible. She is very dedicated and spends many hours working for the SDB.

She has accomplished a lot already, she collected so many supplies that one of her rooms and the garage are completely stuffed. She was in the local newspaper for three times representing the SDB.

Thanks to Hilda even a second volunteer in Groningen applied, Maya.
Hilda was nominated for the most attentive person from Groningen. She came in second!
We would like to congratulate her with this position!

31 okt + 1 en 2 nov 07 Animal Conference Berlin
The annual Animal Conference organised by Dogs Trust is held in Berlin this year.
Last year we attended this conference in Ljubljana (Slovenia).
Tanja, Eerhard, Willeke, Peter and Wilma will visit this event as representatives of the SDB.
We hope to meet a lot of interesting people!

Reunion 5th anniversary of SDB, held Saturday the 6th of October 2007,
Having an afterglow I'm writing a piece about the dogwalk we had yesterday, happenings past my thoughts, conversations pop up, and happy dogs appear in my mind.

Where shall I start writing the story about this successful day.
Pfff, will I tell you about the preparations, the stress in the morning wondering if everything would go as planned, about the wonderful weather, about the excellent turnout(aprox 125 people and 100 dogs), about the start of the walk where we had to find 5 dogs that lost their owners in the chaos, about the walk itself, about the TTouch workshop, about the wonderful lunch, about, about, about?

Words are not adequate to describe the day, it is impossible to picture the way everyone experienced this day. Wilma and I could not tell each other exactly about how we both experienced the day, however the volunteers will can agree upon one thing, it was amazing to see all the dogs we know so well.

Dogs we met in the shelter in Tuzla or Orasje, dogs that are extra special because of the things that happened here or in Bosnia, dogs that we transported to Holland in our own cars, or dogs that we had fostered, it is lovely to see them with their new owners.

A reunion that had touched us deeply, it is beautiful to see the dogs being happy.
Many dogs looked at us surprised as we kneeled down, called by there old names, you could se that they were thinking: "what do you want form me", no signs shown of recognition.

And that is wonderful, the way it is supposed to be, Bosnian dogs all settled and used to their new owners, Bosnia is left far behind.
We could not get a bigger gift for our 5th anniversary, a present formed by all the happy Bosnian dogs present together with their owners, thank you all for this!!!
We hope that the participants all enjoyed the walk, time was lacking to talk to everyone.

We would like to organise more walks with all of you and the owners that could not make it this time.

In the month of November Tanja, Eerhard, Suze, Fred, Marco, Veerle and Lilian will pay a visit to Orasje. This will take place in three separate groups. Several dogs will be brought to Holland.

15 okt 07 Construction of new buildings in Orasje
They are working really hard in Orasje, because the winter is coming and before that the new storage must be finished. This storage is used for keeping all the supplies, that are imported from Holland, and there will be a small space for doing some carpentry.
When they have to do some small jobs like doing carpentry, sawing or anything else, it had always to be done out in the open air, because there are no facilities shelter. This is now changing, Jusuf is busy building and it is going rapidly.
Soon a start will be made placing new fences around the new piece of land. This will be done by a specialised company. Thanks to the donation made by Dutchy Puppy we are able to realise this.
There are also some new members in the shelter, including these two….

Bosnian Dogwalk, 5 year anniversary of the SDB
What a wonderful, warm, relaxed, and fulfilling day it was yesterday.
A Bosnian Dogwalk because of the 5 year anniversary of the SDB!! (official date of establishment was 24 okt '07 5). We will add pictures and movies as soon as possible so everyone can see that I am not making up these stories. It was an awesome walk!

I personally experienced it in some kind of mist. The one moment we drive in our car toward the walk, and the next moment we are driving home.

The day goes by in my head. So many dogs and people I wanted to cuddle and talk to.
To do it right it had to take at least two days.
The dogs all behaved so well. The owners that are all very sweet and caring people, and make a perfect match with their dog(s).

I cannot explain it, express myself in words, how it feels to experience all this.
I could never have imagined this when I decided to stand up for the dogs in Bosnia.
I could never have dreamt of meeting all these special animals.
I could never have thought of meeting so many wonderful people.
I could never have fantasized this was going to be this good for me.

But on the other hand,
I could never have imagined the kind of things that enter into the situation.
I could never have dreamt of going this deep.
I could never have thought of people being this horrible, backstabbing, deceitful and hypocrite, in the way that they show off with saving animals.

I could never have fantasized this was going to have an enormous impact on my live like it is having now!

But in the end it is something I just have to do.
This is where my heart belongs, this is my goal. I took the responsibility when I started the foundation and I have to take the consequences, one way or another. Although this is often really hard and sometimes I would like to hand over all this responsibility.

To see these special dogs, there the most beautiful, dearest, wonderful and amazing, provides me with the necessary energy to go on!

The happiness I see in the eyes of the animals and the people involved makes it all worth and gives the power to keep fighting.

I would like to thank everyone that joined us accompanied by there dogs. It was a pleasure to see all of you, it was amazing to have you there.

I would like to mention some special thanks to a couple of people!
Tanja and Josien, thanks for organising this wonderful walk. You have done an amazing job and it could not have gone any better. Thanks a lot!

Esther, Tom and Sanne thanks for making us a really excellent lunch.
Everyone was extremely enthusiastic about their lunch. Having that kind of a luxurious lunch when you are walking the dogs is something really special. Thanks a million!!

Jorien, thanks for all your support with getting us coffee and tea, and guiding us through the moor land.The landscape was wonderful and we all enjoyed it. Thanks !!

Miriam Beckers thanks for giving us the T-Touch workshop.
It was very interesting and I am sure that you made people think about this and possibly made them working with their animals. Thank you!!

Willeke, Marco and Veerle, thank you for making and creating of the book full of photo's en the canvas picture. It is awesome!!!

Everybody that made their contribution to making the book and the canvas, it is really touching and beautiful, thanks so much for this gesture.

All the people I did not mention, but who were involved in organising the lovely day, thank you!!

The weather was fine, the sun was high in the sky, it was perfect…..but we all deserved it!!

My dear friends, again thanks for everything. Thanks to you all it was a superb event!!

5 oktober 07 Press releases
The things a couple of dogs from Bosnia and their new owners can do.
Goran and Lobke(ala Max and Bebce) were at the same foster family. The new owners of these two dogs arrived at the home of the foster family at the same time. They got in contact and still are.

It is always nice to know how the relatives are doing.
The owner of Goran is a journalist and the owner of Lobke had a story to tell.
This Wednesday a wonderful article was placed in a newspaper called the Algemeen Dagblad.
You can find the article here: http://www.ad.nl/familie_en_relaties/article1710437.ece

KRO Magazine(Dutch tv-guide)
In the KRO Magazine of last week, an article was placed about Wilma and the SDB.

"Hondenmanieren" (Dutch magazine about dogs)
The theme of the next issue of "Hondenmanieren" will be dedicated completely to the dogs and foundations that work outside of Holland. SDB will also have an article in this magazine.

Cokkie at the fair in Rotterdam
Saturday 29 September, Cokkie attended a fair together with a friend, to sell t-shirts in favour of SDB.
Unfortunately not much has been sold. We don't understand because we think the new t-shirts are really really really nice.

Dierzdag in Lelystad
Sunday it was the first time for the "dierzdag"-event in Lelystad. Martin Gaus(a famous dogtrainer in Holland) and his family opened their private property for this special event.

DutchyPuppy attended the happening, and Willeke and Wilma assisted Bryan Maasland at the stand.
It was a nice day, lots of activities were organised. There were lessons in doggydancing, a track for the dogs with all sorts of playful games, more stands and much more things to do.

This event was organised by www.dierz.nl. Dierz is a digital meeting point for all keepers of pets.
We think it is worth checking out this website.
You will also find pictures and information about the event.

DogBlog campaign
The past month there has been a campaign at www.dogblog.nl to raise money for the SDB.
There was a request to donate money so that dogs could be adopted on a distance. This campaign has now been ended and the wonderful results are now made public. They raised 216 euros.

This means that six dogs can be adopted for a whole year. This is excellent.
I would like to thank all the dogbloggers that donated money, thanks for your support!
And Bart, thanks for promoting the SDB.

Especially for all the people that perhaps haven't noticed it yet, there are pictures of the last trip we made to Orasje in the folder Photo's and Video's.

23rd of September 2007 Trip to Orasje
We all returned safely, accompanied by with eleven dogs. It was a special kind of trip. Special people, special animals, special moments, special meetings, special situations and many emotions. Soon you can read our reports and look at the gallery for all the pictures made of this trip. I want thank everyone who went along to Bosnia.
Tanja, Marco, Veerle, Willeke, Suze, Fred, Lilian, Cokkie and Iris.... Thanks!! You are all the best.....

6th of October “walking our Bosnian dogs”
Just a couple of days and it will finally happen! There are already more than 75 dogs and just as many people who will join us, and the number will probably increase. The Bosnian dog walk is organised because the foundation exists 5 years already this year in October. It will be a special “walk and talk” meeting. Everyone who wants walk along is welcome, also people with dogs which do not come from Bosnia. All information will be provided on our website this week.

10th of September 2007 Tanja, Veerle and Marco in Bosnia
At this moment Tanja, Veerle and Marco are in Orasje. Today also Suze and Fred will arrive, and they will return together with the last group of volunteers that will leave Bosnia on Thursday the 21st of September.
They painted, visited Tuzla, and more activities are planned, like e.g. emptying the storage in Tuzla and bringing everything to Orasje.
The visit they paid to Tuzla was a special one. Katica(the lady that cares for cats) was visited. We support this old lady in one way or another. We cannot distance ourselves entirely from this lady, who shelters cats and a couple of dogs in her own way.
We will buy her a stove, because the one she has is broken. And the winter is coming, so they will need some warmth.
We will also try to control the medical care for the cats that live with Katica. And on top of that we give her food by Svjetlana in Orasje.
After the visit to Tuzla also a number of new occupants has recovered in the asylum in Orasje!! We are happy to have them and care for them, give them a happy safe live.

Next group of volunteers to Bosnia
Thursday the 13th of September the next group of volunteers will leave for Orasje, Willeke, Cokkie, Lilian, Iris and Wilma. This group will return on the 21st of September to Holland. Marco, Veerle and Tanja will return from their trip on Monday the 17th of September.

Drvar pups
Elvira will check upon the pups every day and they are doing okay.
They have been vaccinated and de-wormed and will be transported to Orasje this Saturday. They are not as anxious as they were in the beginning, and they can now be caressed carefully. The male dog is the least scared. The two dogs play with each other a lot. They eat properly, so we expect them to turn out as two happy and healthy dogs.
We are all very curious about these two dogs which we will finally see Saturday in Orasje.

New request for help shelter some dogs
This weekend a request for help reached Elvira. A lady rang about her dog and 8 pups the dog had. The lady herself already placed 5 pups but the 3 remaining puppies and their mother could not stay with her. They had already 2 dogs and that was hard enough.
We asked Svjetlana if it was possible to bring the mother and its pups to Orasje. So actions are taken in place to make room for them, because the shelter is packed.
But of the dogs are of course welcome in Orasje. Soon therefore this mother and its 3 pups will become new occupants of the shelter in Orasje.

SDB have been set up for the stray dogs in Bosnia. People in Bosnia try to remove these animals in dreadful manners. We know that killing is no way to solve the problem. The ONLY solution is castration/sterilisation.
To bring this under the attention in a country where veterinary surgeons do not know how a dog or cat works physically and how a sterilisation must be done properly.
It is worldwide a problem and the more people speak their minds and devote themselves to the stray animals the louder our voices will become.
Because SDB is against killing stray dogs we support the No Kill foundation.

This foundation organises a seminar on 1 and 2 December 2007 where one of the topics will be the early castration and sterilisation dogs and cats.

Timing is essential when it comes to castration/sterilisation.
That sterilising and castrating animals is a more effective and friendly way to prevent animal suffering (killing healthy animals by euthanizing, poisoning, shooting or even more terrible activities...), we do not need to tel you. That’s why we don’t.

On the other hand, we do ask you to pay attention to a relatively unknown method: Castration at a young age, also known as early castration!
This 2 days seminar organised by the No Kill organisation in December this year concerns "early castration", castration of pups and kittens as from approximately 8 weeks, and therefore an important step. SDB invites you to check out their website to look at further information: http://www.nokill.eu/content/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=70&Itemid=128
SDB has been involved in an active way organising this seminar and we hope of course that this will open a lot of eyes in the Netherlands and possibly even outside.

Yesterday the second puppy arrived at the pension in Bihac. The owner and his wife were getting ready to leave and were all dressed up, but immediately stood by to reunite the little one with her brother.

Elvira with the pups in the kennel

Elvira Text messaged me yesterday that they were playing all the time, and they are doing very well. The female dog allowed Elvira to touch her. These two will turn out all right! We will do everything to give them a golden future!

1st of September 07 brother and sister re-united

Last Wednesday Elvira went to check upon the small female dog that was still hiding in the sewer pipe. She brought some sleeping pills and lots of food as part of the plan to catch her.

The puppy ate the pills and became a bit sleepy but did not really fall a sleep.
If there was any movement towards her she pulled back. Elvira stayed until the evening dropped in but without success.
Water and food were left behind, close to the place she sleeps at night, so she would be comfortable.
More sleeping pills and cans of Tuna were handed over to Remko and his colleagues, they would give it a try a couple days later. And this attempt succeeded. Here is Remko’s story.

Hi Wilma,
This morning we finally did it, we got the female dog!
We decided to try it today instead of yesterday, because she was pretty sick of the pills we gave her and Thursday morning she was still out cold in the sewer pipe and also in the evening. And also because of our busy day we decided to postpone it.

When we arrived she was sitting outside the sewer, so we were able to dig in front of the sewer and shut the pipe so she could not go in there again.

We gave het eight pills and a can of tuna, and waited in the car parked at a safe distance

After an hour fighting against the sleep, she was not willing to give up, and made an attempt to go into the forest. So we got out of the car with more food and draw a lot of attention, and because of her curiosity she approached us again.

She was still scared from the former attempts of catching her, and because we did seize her brother.
She hurried to get into the sewer, and when she got in we followed her, and there was no way out. We were able to get her without her trying to bite us.

But when we put her in our car she peed and pooped all over us, but that is were washing machines come in!
The ride was not very pleasant for her, we had to stop one time, because she was vomiting.
I think it is combined because of stress, pills, driving the curved roads and fear. After driving 1 ½ hour she was reunited with her brother.

At this moment they are together in a kennel, and I am convinced it will lead to a happy ending.
The brown dog is less scared, and likes being petted by the owner of the pension.
Only when there are too many people around them they are still frightened.

Well, regards, we will definitely visit them before leaving for Orasje.
We would like to thank the foundation for all the time and effort spend to mean something for these precious dogs.
I will make a donation and ask the others to do that also.

Remko and Dick brought the female dog to Bihac and reunited her with her brother.

In the beginning they had to get used to each other again, but yesterday evening Elvira text messaged me that the were playing.

They will be treated against worms, and in a couple of days they will be vaccinated.
Elvira is checking them every day, and these two dogs will be transferred to the shelter in Orasje. Elvira will take pictures and when we receive this we will place them on the website.

Remko, Dick, Elvira en her boyfriend and all the others that assisted, thank you very much!

Lilian, Veerle and Marco at the flee market in Heerlen
4 months ago a folder appeared that announced a flee market in Heerlen that would take place.
Marco and Veerle saw the opportunities and asked the volunteers for help. Lilian was willing to help them out.
About 1,5 week before it started the municipality granted them to sell t-shirts for the SDB because it was for a good cause, with the restriction that it would not be to eye-catching. Their report on the happening:
A few days before the market we went to Wilma to pick up some t-shirts. This was a trip well spent because we had a car full of materials for the shelter in Bosnia and its dogs.

We did not have a t-shirt yet, except for Lilian, so we had to try on some models, because we wanted to show them while selling them.

At the day of the happening we agreed on meeting Lilian at the promenade in Heerlen.
It was the first time that Lilian visited Heerlen, so Albert and Lilian had to search a little bit.
At that moment the cell phone is a wonderful gadget, it was the perfect way to get her there in time.

Setting up our booth and blowing up the mannequins without head or limps until you get dizzy, pfffff.
At nine o’clock the market started and three minutes later we sold 7 books, a new record!
These books didn’t sell the last time we were in Overpelt, and now they go quickly.

During the day we sold over 30 books, so don’t worry when you don’t sell anything, it can happen at a different spot.

It was going tob e a warm summer-day so we had on our summergear, but it turned out to be chilly. So the ladies got cold and went shopping. First there was Lilian, because we were situated just across her favourite shop “Miss Etam”. After some time we started worrying because it took so long. But after an hour she showed up with a really large shopping bag of

“Miss Etam”
Lilian also kept her trip to Bosnia in September in mind, and later that day she proceeded her shopping and went back! A girl can never have enough clothes.

The fact that Lilian finished her first shopping-round made it possible for Veerle to look at “Britain” for a sweat shirt. Because when it is predicted to get 27 degrees Celsius Veerle doesn’t think of bringing one.

They were able to do some shopping because the morning was very quiet. It is Saturday and most people get up later.

After one o’clock it all speeded up and it was very busy.
A lady gave us 1,50 just because we did a good job saving dogs, and some couple told us they were interested fostering. That couple came back after 1,5 hour, bought a t-shirt and told us they would phone Wilma to talk about the fostering.

There was a lady that had no interest in bying a t-shirt but did want a blow-up-mannequin!! We had to disappoint her.
Later that day Maza and Rosa dropped by, their owner Myriam came along too. Myriam bought a t-shirt and then there were four people standing behind the market stall.

We sold lots of different stuff and a lot of people were enthusiastic about our work.
Many people cared for our foundation, had some conversations and were interested.
That day we made a profit of 310 euros and maybe a new foster family.
We are satisfied and had a very nice day.

In the evening Maza, Rosa, Parkin and Sivka visited Lola, Zelja and Nina.
All the two legged ‘animals’ had a lovely BBQ at Lilians and Alberts place.

28th of August 2007 Rescue operations of two puppies in Drvar

I got an email through Els Adams, of the foundation “Dier en project”, this email was from a Dutch soldier. This Soldier, Remko, was stationed in Bosnia and asked us for help. Amongst other thing he wrote:

SDB immediately contacted Remco and we were looking for a solution to help them.
Elvira, one of our permanent volunteers in Bosnia, lives a bit more then an hour away from Drvar, the place Remko is working.

Elvira wanted to help catch the dogs, but there was no place to put them temporarily.
It was not possible to put them with Remko, and Elvira already had three dogs running around her house. The shelter in Orasje was more then three hours of driving.

In September Elvira was coming to Orasje, but until then we had to place the dogs somewhere.

When Elvira was buying a bench in Bihac and asked some things, the owner of the shop told her that there was a small pension for dogs in Bihac.

Elviracould not believe this so she asked the phone number to call them immediately.
She made an appointment to visit the pension and went to check it out.

The people who run the pension is a couple, they have some dog kennels behind their home.
It was all looking very nice and tidy, and the are working on putting a fence around the property. It looked fine, so they agreed on placing the dogs over there if it was possible to catch them.

We needed to get the dogs out of their spot as soon as possible. And it became even more necessary when Remko emailed us telling that the male dog was gone for a couple of days.

When he returned after a few days he was almost not able to walk. Maybe he was hit by a car? Or bit by a snake? Kicked by someone? Fortunately the little guy recuperated.

But because of this incident the pressure was on to catch these dogs and put them somewhere safe. Contacts were made and an they planned their moves.

The past Sunday Elvira, Remko and another colleague went to look for the dogs and tried to catch them. Unfortunately they were able to catch the male dog only. The female dog was to scared, especially after the male dog was gone the days before we told about.

She crawled into the sewer pipe and there was a risk of she being stuck.
So they did not want to take more risks.

They decided to leave her there and take the male dog and leave her behind.
Remko and his colleagues will try to win her over so they will be able to catch her and bring her to a safe environment. That moment Elvira will pick her up to bring her to the pension also. It is clear that we all hope this will soon happen.

The male dog is doing okay. He is now vaccinated and de-wormed by the vet, and Elvira visits the little fellow every day to play with him and cuddle him. In September he will be brought to the shelter in Orasje where he will stay to be taken care after.

When we have more news on the female dog we will of course write an update on our website. We hope they will be together soon.

22nd of August 2007

Johan Pot deceased
Johan Pot called me a couple of months ago because he heard of the foundation through Arnold, the veterinarian. He offered to help us because he thought we were doing a good job.

Johan has/had is own company were t-shirts are printed amongst other things.
He offered us to print t-shirts at reduced charges.
We did not have to pay until the t-shirts were sold, and we did not have to put a large order.
This was of course a wonderful offer, and it was clear that Johan wanted to help us.
Thanks to Johan we started making our own t-shirts!

Unfortunately Johan suffered from cancer and in the end it became fatal.
The 30th of July Johan deceased.
The company will be taken over by his daughter Marscha.

Through this we would like to wish his family and friends all the best and a lot of strength during this period of grief.

August 2007
In Orasje they are trying to find out what the expenses will be to place fences around the new piece of land, of more than 2000 m2, and make it suitable for facilitating the care for more dogs.

The first proposals arrived and if we want to do it properly, the cost will soon run up to 5.000 euros to put a fence around the entire land. This fence will be made of material which is low on maintenance.

We will do our best to collect the money for the fence, because winter is coming soon and it would be great if this job is done before the winter starts, and we will be able to host more dogs.

The dogs in Orasje are doing really well and there is plenty of food in the storage because the truck brought in a load of dog food in July. So we do not have to worry about the dogs being hungry.

After our trip in September more dogs will be available on the list of dogs you can adopt on a distance. During that trip a lot of pictures will be taken and time will be spent with the dogs so we can inform you about them.

Trip September
The second and third week of September volunteers of the SDB will be working in Bosnia again. Plans and preparations are made.

Marco, Veerle and Tanja will be in Orasje the second week of September.
Tanja and Veerle will be occupied collecting information about the dogs.
Marco will help Yusuf with all the jobs that have to be done on the shelter.

The storage in Tuzla will be emptied, to take all the goods to Orasje. Marco, Veerle and Tanja will also pay a visit to the shelter in Tuzla.

At the end of the second week Suze and Fred will arrive in Orasje to help emptying the rest of the storage and do some jobs in the shelter of Orasje

The third week of September Willeke, Peter, Iris, Cokkie, Lilian and Wilma will leave for Orasje.
This week we will be all about getting the shelter ready for more dogs and the winter.
This trip there no veterinarian is coming along because almost all the dogs are sterilized and there is not enough work to be done for the vet.

Next year in April there we will be joined by a medical team again.

We also planned to visit the town of Breza in the third week. More and more people in Bosnia tend to contact us. And very recently an email was sent to us about the situation of stray dogs in Breza. Breza is a town situated about 20 km form Sarajevo.

This email was horrible, and the pictures were even worse.
The story tells about collecting dogs on the 27th of July 2007 helped by police officers.
In front of local people and children the dogs were shot and caught. Dogs were thrown in a truck (as seen on the pictures) dead or alive and taken away.

The fact that police officers are involved in this is absolutely unacceptable. They should never abuse their power and their weapons.

The writer of the letter told us that children ended up traumatised and that this should not happen in front of people. That there should be another solution.
He asked us for help and offered us to build a shelter on his land.

After hearing this SDB sent faxes to the mayor, police and OHR in Sarajevo and Breza.
The OHR (Office of the High Representatives) received and read the fax. We will try to put pressure on everybody to ensure the police officers that assisted on this happening are being punished. .

During our week in Orasje in September we will also pay a visit to the people that wrote us in Breza. Who knows what will happen in the future!

Booths
On the 28th of August it was time to assist Dutchy Puppy on an event called VTM Live in Gent(Belgium). Tanja, Willeke, Cokkie and Wilma left early in the morning.

There would bes ome performances of artists, like Marco Borsato, he would be playing his fabulous songs!
During day time all sorts of artists performed and it was a fun day. But unfortunately the profits on the selling of t-shirts were not that great. But some people did find the stand.

On the 25th of august Marco, Veerle and Lilian will spend their day on a market in Heerlen. They will try to sell as much stuff as possible, new and second handed.

The entire profit will of course go to SDB.
We hope the weather is going to be nice and a lot of things will be sold.

The 9th of September the event Dierenpret 2007 in Zwolle is planned. SDB will attend this happening for the first time this year. We hope to meet a lot of people who love animals and of course we also hope to sell a some items. Are you in the neighbourhood? Please pay us a visit.

Dogs that are adopted

The Bosnian dogs that came to Holland are so Lucky being with their new families over here.
Most of the dogs found a new home and are doing more than okay.

All the puppies that came to Holland found perfect new owners and we hope it will stay this way.

But…… For Mishka and Francesca we are still looking for a new place to stay and we do not understand why these two adorable sweet ladies are still waiting.
We soon hope to find them wonderful homes too.

Thanks to the entire crew of volunteers that dedicate their selves it is possible to keep SDB running.
Thanks to all the sweet people that care for the SDB we can reach our goals.

Dear all of you, thanks so much for all your help, support and dedication.
I hope we will all meet at the 6th of October.

Wilma de Joode

28th of July

Dear Bosnian-dog owners, people that adopted on a distance and everyone else that have warm feelings for our foundation.

On the 24th of October 2007 the Stichting Dierenopvang Bosnië celebrates its 5th year anniversary.
Several plans were considered, but in the end we thought it would be the best thing to gather and have a walk together with all the Bosnian dogs, their owners and everyone that has an interest in our organisation.

We would like you to note Saturday the 6th of October in your diary.
Further details will be brought to you as soon as possible,

Hi dear doglovers,

A little while ago I met Wilma de Joode at the conference “huisdierendagen” in rai.
She asked me if it was possible to dedicate myself to the SDB.

I have no intention being stuck-up, but these kind of requests are frequently asked, if it is possible to represent a good cause.
So before I decide anything, I always think about the request very carefully, what I can contribute to a foundation.
I think it is best if you are able to support something for the full 1000% and not because it is an ego-boost!!!! Wilma gave me some information about the SDB and told me to check out the website.

I came across a movie, an impression of the stray dogs in Bosnia, Tuzla.
I was shocked, touched and cried.

I cannot believe the fact so many dogs have no place to stay, and on top of that people are cruel to these innocent animals, this has to stop NOW!!!!That is why I didn’t have to think much longer about devoting my heart to this project. I gladly commit myself to the dogs in Bosnia.I will try to help in anyway I can, and I hereby ask anyone that did not adopt a dog on distance yet, or did not help in anyway, to please start this now.
We desperately need your help, because the possibility of giving these dogs a second chance is in your hands!

With YOUR help we can reach far more goals!
Help us, join us and support the SDB!!!!
Thanks!
Love Ellemieke Vermolen

(Ellemieke Vermolen is one of Hollands celebrities, she is a TV personality and loves animals!)

Since today a new movie is shown on the website of www.nokill.eu, it is an interview with Nathan J. Winograd, the founder of the No Kill method in the United States.

During this interview he tells about the period when he was a student and all the cats that lived on the university grounds. The animal-protection societies strongly protested against the suggestion to control the population of cats by castrating and sterilizing the animals.
That was the moment to start up the No Kill method like they use it now a days in the United States.
He explaines that the only sollution is killing the stray animals to control the numbers is just a fairy tale and also about the alternatives. He illustrates what is No Kill and how to use it to reach the goals of reducing the stray animals.
In a nutshell it is an interview that gives us hope of getting an animal friendly future.
It is something all animal lovers should see.

SDB on Hyves
Because we have to keep up with all the trends where it comes to the internet, we developed an account on hyves. For everyone that never heard of hyves, on www.hyves.nl everybody can make their own page(even out prime-minister has one). Texts, pictures and video’s, everything is possible. Someone with its own hyve-page is called a hyver.
It is a space where many people meet and of course we hope that people will find our page and get acquainted with the SDB.

News from Orasje
A couple of weeks ago an email came from Svjetlana that her freezer broke down and she did not know what to do, because all the food and fresh meat for the dogs was stored in there. Several butchers and meat-processing companies donate their offal for feeding the dogs.

Of course it is very important to keep this meat in a cool storage to keep it fresh. That is why this freezer is essential. SDB transferred money, also thanks to a donation made by Astrid, to buy a new freezer and some materials.
The materials were needed for proceeding the activities to improve the shelter.
The toilet has tob e finished, and the aggregate that we brought to Orasje needs to be covered.

They are working hard in Orasje, you can see the prove of that on the pictures they send.
There even is a pool the dogs use to cool down during the warm days in Bosnia.

The new freezer is bought and the toilet is nearly done. Our help is used in the best way in Orasje and we love to see this every time.

13th of July 2007

Leaving Tuzla
It looks like we are definitely going to leave Tuzla.
After trying everything through the lawyer and he municipality, the result is that we will not be able to start a new shelter in Tuzla. It was our biggest dream, and still is, because we all fell in love with those dogs, but we cannot find a way to reach our goals over there.
To spend more time and money is useless.
We are all devastated and cried our eyes out knowing all this, because we all know the dogs personally and we took care of them for a considerable amount of years.
We could have never thought that this wouldn’t work out because we didn’t want to believe that someone could continue mistreating the dogs.
Unfortunately it turns out to be end way.
The more dishonest you are, the better the results.
We have to accept our painful loss and we will focus all our attention on all the other animals and people that need our help.
We hope that you will all understand this decision and that you will maintain your support like you always did.
We will keep an eye on the shelter in Tuzla.

Transport of materials
Meanwhile we keep doing the things we have done for the past years.
Collecting materials that is necessary for helping the animals in Bosnia is one of those activities.

Finally a transport left again on Monday the 9th of July.
The truck was loaded with all the collected stuff like food, blankets, leashes, a Romney shed, a washing-up kitchen and lots of other materials.

At half past ten the truck arrived in Hardinxveld, where the shed and the kitchen were ready to be collected, when they were loaded we left for Moerdijk were we stored the rest of the stuff. Tanja, Cokkie, Carin and Marina waited in Moerdijk to help us load it all.

We thought it would not fit, but because of the excellent arrangement made by Peter a lot of materials got in the truck. The whole space was used and the truck left overloaded.

Tuesday morning Arjen and Lotte started their trip to Bosnia. They arrived Thursday evening in Orasje where Svjetlana and Jusuf were stand by with a couple of people to unload the truck. They were very happy to see all these materials.

By this way we would like to thank everybody for donating all this.!!!
Without all your support this would not have been possible.

Wilma de Joode (voorzitter)

Unloading the truck 13th of July 07
Dear Wilma,
Please find few photos made with my mobile at the unloading of the truck yesterday. Svjetlana sends her regards, thanks and she will send you more photos made by her camera in following days.
Best,
Milana

Short trip Marco and Suze

It was a tough trip with a lot of complications, but fortunately also a lot of positive things.
Their report on this short but difficult trip will soon be available on this website.
Marco and Suze went to Bosnia to pick up Mama dog and her pups. These seven babies have arrived safe and sound in Holland and will stay at foster families for some time.
We will keep you posted on the news of this special family.
And of course you can find pictures of the visit to Orasje and Tuzla soon.

11th of June
Dogblog of the month
Recently we started our own Dogblog.
This blog shows all our news and updates about e.g. the dogs that are ready for adoption, but also all things that happen around SDB. Bart, from the DogBlog organisation, started some sort of campaign to emphasize the necessity of adoption on a distance.
We think this is awesome, and we thank Bart for doing this. We of course hope that it will draw a lot of attention and people who end up adopting dogs. U can get an update by checking http://www.dogblog.nl/SDBactie.html

Huisdierendagen Rai Amsterdam
During the whitweekend there was a huge event with the theme "pets". Many stands were to be visited and you could attend all sorts of activities.
The volunteers of the SDB attended the stand of Dutchypuppy for three days. It was a very busy weekend, and a lot of people came to buy t-shirts.
Thanks to this sale DP can support the SDB financially, and that is what we do it for.
Those three days were fun and pleasant. Bridget dropped in every day, and even Elemieke Vermolen paid a visit. Ellemieke opened the event together with Martin Gaus.
It definitely was worth it, and we hope to be there again next year.

Podenco-day, Amersfoort
Every year Judy Kleinbongardt organises podenco-day in Amersfoort. This year the SDB joined the party with a small stand. It was a bit exciting because we were about to sell out t-shirts for the first time.
It was a big success because the shirts sold very well and we got a lot of positive reactions.
It turned out te be a fun, lovely and enjoyable day. We were able to catch up and a lot of nice dogs came by. Even Vili and her owner visited. A good day in the end.

New T-shirts
We have been busy and awaiting for the new SDB t-shirts.
Of course it are not just the standard t-shirts with the information of the SDB, but really supercool, awesome, especially made for dog-lovers, beautiful t-shirts.
These shirts soon will be available in our shop. Be ware, you cannot miss this!

Marco and Suze on their journey to Orasje
Tuesday the 12th of June Marco en Suze left for a short visit to Orasje. They will also pay a visit to Tuzla. The reason of this short trip is mainly for the mother dog and her puppies we brought from Bihac to Orasje, and we now are bringing to Holland.
We usually don't bring a mother and her babies to Holland but this is different and I will tell you why.
Elvira is a Bosnian young woman that takes care of dogs her whole liefe.
She was the one that found the mother dog, emaciated and wounded, and she started taking care for her in her garden. Mama got pregnant and delivered some puppies. Because Elvira was not able to care for the puppies she started sending emails to everyone to get help. That is when we got in contact with each other, and from that day she is our help and stay in Bosnia.
Elvira brought the pups to the shelter in Tuzla, at the time we were still the keepers.
When Suze, Fred and Willeke visited the shelter in Tuzla in January this year, Willeke unfortunately had to put some of the puppies to sleep because of an infection. The other ones were okay and stayed in the shelter. But because of the hostile takeover by Nevenka we don't know what happened to the puppies.
Probably they are all dead by now, because when Marco and Veerle visited the shelter some time later, the shed were the puppies stayed was completely empty.
But Elvira still had Mama dog, and she got pregnant again. Elvira tried to get her neutered, but the vets around Bihac cannot perform this surgery. Some of them would not do it because it was the wrong time of the year??!!
Elvira was scared that Mama dog would not survive if the "butchers" in her town would perform this. That is why mama got pregnant and delivered some babies again.
Elvira begged for help, so Suze and Fred picked them all up in April and brought them to Orasje. This time we promised to take care of them very well, and that we would find a nice home for all of them. Unfortunately one of the puppies died in Orasje. But the rest made it and are vaccinated. The pups stayed at Svetlanas because somebody stole the white puppy. Some people saw who did it and told Svetlana and her husband. They immediately went to these people and reclaimed the puppy. So they were scared of people steeling them and kept them at their home.
Mama is a very wonderful and sweet dog with a rough history. She deserves to find the best place possible. Elvira told about mama: the mama suffered a lot, she was injured when we met her the first time, she had cuts around her neck and she was so skinny so she could barely walk
I (and I think with me the rest of our group) feel very responsible for these animals and Elvira. She experienced the war, and it shows. This young woman is a interpreter at the EU police and does anything to help the animals in her country and us.
I feel "obliged" to save this small family of dogs, and with that Elvira.
Marco and Suze will arrive in Holland on the 15th of June. The puppies and there mother will be placed in temporarily homes and when the time is right we will put them up for adoption.

Romny-shed and washing-up kitchen picked up
We are always looking for materials we can use in Bosnia. Especially Peter is always keeping his eyes and ears open. Months ago he saw a romny-shed for sale on the internet and bought it. When the shed was demolished he could pick it up, and so it happened. A big truck left to Drachten, were the shed was. Peter arranged a truck through Hartog en Bikker and asked a friend that is a truck driver to help him, so at 8.30 am they started their trip.
Along the way they also had to pick up a washing-up kitchen, with some cabinets. Grada Rutte arranged these materials and we were allowed to pick them up for free.
At 7.30 pm Ton and Peter came back home bringing the kitchen and shed.
This will be put on the next transport we aim to have in July.
Ton and Peter, you are the best!

23rd of May 2007
Guest speaker Wereldasielen at the ROC Prinsentuin College
When I received an email of Saskia, from a foundation called Wereldasielen(World-shelters), where she asked me if I could join her at her visit to a school called the ROC, and give a special lecture, it was no need to think about this for, of course!

These things are really special, it is fun to do, and the best way to reach a lot of people.

It's not just about promoting the SDB, but more to get people started changing something.
Start helping, anywhere in the world.
Most op the people say "why would you light a candle in the sun", but if all the volunteers working all over the world would stop lighting the candles, the world would look much worse.
So anyone that I can turn in a positive way, is a victory. The more people light a candle the better I think.

Yvon Joosten, teacher at the ROC, a horticultural college, had organized, together with her students, a fund-raising. They choose Bosnia. And because of this choice Stichting Wereldasielen and the SDB were invited to tell about our work, and receive the aid supplies.
Saskia started the lecture by telling something about Werelasielen, and after that there was 45 minutes left to tell about our work. Images say more than words, so I showed the documentary made by Llink.
Each time I look at the documentary, I still get watering eyes and I feel a lot of pride about the SDB. But this aside, after showing the dvd, there was an opportunity to ask questions, and so they did.
When all the questions were answered Saskia had to say something.
This was a big surprise, because on behalf of Stichting Wereldasielen the SDB received a cheque with a value of 500 euros. This is awesome, so thanks a lot everybody that works for Wereldasielen!!

Soon I will return to the ROC in Breda to collect more supplies, because the fund-raising is still going on. Hopefully a lot of stuff is being raised and I hope we at least got one student's interest to get involved in any charity there is.
Everybody at the ROC, from the class of Yvonne Joosten, thanks for listening and thanks for making an effort for the dogs in Bosnia!

11th of May 2007
Animal Event at the Beekse Bergen
This year it was the first time that the Animal Event took place in a safari park called Beekse Bergen. This event about animals lasted three days.
The volunteers of the SDB represented Dutchy Puppy at a stand for these three days.

At the event a couple of celebrities were present, like Martin Gaus(a guy who really knows how to deal with dogs especially), Anky van Grunsven(one of the best horsewoman ever), Tannetje Koning(holistic vet) and Bridget Maasland(Dutchy Puppy).

There was something to do for everybody.
Friday it started with “school-day”. So a lot of children were able to visit the event.
Unfortunately it rained almost all day, but of course this did not spoil our fun.
Bridget visited the stand after performing the “horse whispering” with Emiel Voest and gave her autograph to all the people joining at the stand.
She also gave an interview to a shownieuws, this is a big show in Holland on SBS6.

Saturday and Sunday the weather was much better. A lot of people visited the stand and bought shirts, caps, books and shawls, because it is about the merchandise. By selling them Dutchy Puppy is supported and by that DP can support other projects, like our foundation.

The days were diversified with a lot of good things. Some of us were invited to drive through the park in the special VIP bus.
In that bus the vet from the safari Park as well as Martin Gaus told all kind of interesting information about the animals in the park. These are rare occasions you really enjoy.

The three days passed quickly and we sold a lot of stuff. It was a great experience and we hope to join the Animal event at the Beekse Bergen again next year.

During the Whitweekend you can find us again at the RAI-Huisdierendagen in Amsterdam, at the stand of Dutchy Puppy. We hope to see you all over there!

Special Offer
We received an email from Bianca van der Veeke. The mail stated: “I am a free lance model and I love dogs. I have a jack Russell myself, a real darling. I had the plan to make calendars with the best pictures I have and sell them to raise money for your foundation. I just started selling and I hope it will go fast. I love what you are doing and hope you persist in reaching your goals, Respect!”
I was curious who this lady was and checked out her website. Bianca turns out to be a beautiful model, and I am really proud that she decided to support us in this way.
When you are interested in the calendar you can send an email to Bianca. Her address you can find on www.biancav.nl
Bianca, thanks a lot for this great gesture.

SDB Dogblog
We cannot stay behind on all the possibilities with Internet. So now we have our own weblog.
All our volunteers can tell their stories and people can give their response on the stories.
News about the dogs, temporary places the dog stay, the dogs that found a new home, about everything we do.
Sometimes just the pictures, and another time a story that needs to be told.
We do our utmost to keep it up-to-date, next to our normal website.
You can find our weblog on: http://stichtingdierenopvangbosnie.dogblog.nl

8th of may 2007, our trip to Orasje
It is alreeds two weeks ago that we returned from our big trip to Orasje.
Soon there will be placed ten dogs for adoption on a distance from this particular shelter. All the benefits from these adoptions will go to the shelter in Orasje. We hope many people will support these dogs.
A couple of the dogs we took to Holland from Orasje already found a new home.
We of course are eager to find homes for all the other dogs that came along.
You can find some reports on our site and the pictures of this trip.
We also work on getting some movies on our website.
We all have a very good feeling on our last trip. We are really happy to see that there are people that care for the wellbeing of the dogs.

Developments around the shelter in Tuzla
In Tuzla we still work together with the municipality on getting a piece of land. For us it is all going to slow(much to slow), but according to the Bosnian ways of working things are speeding up!
Many meetings were held in the city-council and even the major has stated that there is an urgency to solve this.
We are deliberating with our lawyer what we can and what we cannot reach.
Because we are able to buy a piece of land, but we have to be sure we are allowed to start a shelter at that location. And the municipality can give us all the approvals we need, but what if the people that live close to this location don’t want a shelter next to them.
So it is not as easy as it seems, we have to take a lot in consideration, because we don’t want to buy a useless piece of land were we cannot build our shelter.
We hope to have it all clear soon!

Upcoming events
Meanwhile we are preparing for a couple of events that we will attend soon.
The animal event in a safari park, national pet-days in Amsterdam, day of the “Podenco-dogs” in Amerfoort.
We will be there with our own booth, or we will support the booth of Dutchy puppy a couple of times. We hope a lot of people will visit these events.

T-shirts
Our shop soon will be expanded with t-shirts. These t-shirts are presently fabricated and I can ensure you they will be awesome. So keep an eye on our shop!

Fostering parents? We need you!
We are still looking for more families that would like to foster our dogs. The foster parents have a big role in our organisation, because without these people we are not able to give the dogs a second chance. So do you have plenty of time, love and experience with dogs please contact us by email or by calling +31 6-46198579.

Friday the 13th
At 6 o’clock in the morning we left Hardinxveld Giessendam. We were told that the weather would be nice and we were all anxious to go.
Suze and Fred already left Zaandam early and Marco and Veerle were going tonight.
We decided to make an early start, so that we could avoid all the traffic, and we would arrive in time in Orasje(Bosnia)
There were two cars, Eerhard and Tanja were accompanied by Willeke and Peter and I had Carin and Marine on our back seat.
The journey went smoothly, no traffic jams. Not even in Germany, in the area of Frankfurt.
I received a very positive text message from Maja, she wrote that the municipality of Tuzla had selected two pieces of land to visit next week and check out the suitability for building the shelter.
The locations were approved by the local authorities, so it was very promising.
I immediately started fantasizing about the promising land and all the possibilities. And that in the end of the week we would leave with the best news of having a future with a new shelter location. Till then it is still dreaming, and keeping in mind that it might end in nothing at the end of this journey.

After 600 kilometres Peter told that the temperature increased and the indicator was almost entering the red part! We pulled over at a gas station and it became clear that we had a big problem. Eventually we arrived at a garage that could help us solve this problem.
But unfortunately the problem could not be solved quickly, and therefore we were forced to look for an other solution. The lease-company could not do anything because we were outside of Holland. So I called the ANWB, the Dutch road service, and the instantly helped us. After 6 hours of waiting we had a bus that replaced our own car, and we transferred all our belongings to the bus. These materials could easily be hidden in Peter’s car, but now everything was out in the open, and we were a bit worried about the aggregate and the way the custom officers would handle this.

Eerhard, Tanja and Willeke continued their trip earlier, because it was no use waiting with all seven of us.
We were very happy with the new car, but there was only room for 3 people and not for the four of us.
Fortunately Marco and Veerle would leave at the end of the day, so after some calls we agreed to meet somewhere to arrange that Carin and Marina could join them in their car.
Finally after a total of 10 hours of waiting on the parking lot of the garage, and after that at a restaurant, we could proceed our journey to Orasje.

With two cars we left Wurzburg at 22.30 and had a safe trip. We crossed the borders without problems and questions, but ofcourse at the Bosnian border the made a circus as we are used to.
But after a phonecall our translator Milana came and explaned it all. We could enter Bosnia, but with a warning that next time it would not be this easy. We were happy that the aggregate draw all the attention, and not the medicine we had for all the operations we had planned to do.
Soon Svjetlana and her husband came to the border and welcomed us. We were brought to the hotel by Milana and joined all the other Dutch volunteers.
In the meantime it was Saturday, April the 14th, and it was 10.30.
It is wonderful to see everyone, and finally to be together again. Marco, Veerle, Carin, Marina, Peter and I went for a sleep. We all were tired of the lack of sleep and the dozing off.

The rest of the team, Eerhard, Tanja, Willeke, Suze and Fred went to the shelter in Orasje tob ring all the materials and goods, and after that they were off to Tuzla.
In Tuzla all the necessary tools were picked up for doing the operations this week. Also Henny, the vet, was coming to Tuzla.
Some of them wanted to check the shelter in Tuzla, but when they approached, they saw the little welknown blue car coming down the hill. Nevenka was driving. She turned the car and drove directly to the shelter, with the phone stuck to her ears!
When she passed the Dutch cars the second time, she was waved at! Who she called we do not know, but it is probably the police.
To avoid more problems, the team left, and skipped the visit to the shelter. One thing was very clear now:
The Dutchies are back in Bosnia, and not everyone is pleased to know this!
At 5 o’clock in the afternoon we all got together, and went for a drink and some food. It was a pleasant evening and we are all ready for a week full of hard work.

Sunday, April the 15th 2007
At 8 in the morning, everyone joined for breakfast and at 9 we were at the shelter.
First we needed to get used and find their responsibility. The medical team was ready to start their job, but it took a while before the first dog was brought in. Suddenly it was clear that Svjetlana was not enthousiastic about the castrating, although she sounded happy to have us working at first.
At that moment I had to bite my tongue, and try my best not to be angry and frustrated.
How can someone tell not to do all the dogs?
To understand this odd request I had to look at the culture and the mindset of this country.
The process of castrating and sterilising dogs is not something the people are used to over here. It is not accepted you are doing this to your dog, and even if you would like it to let it be done, then the vet can refuse to do it because it is not healthy, or it is not the right time of the year, anyway…. The vets that do perform the operations often have no clue what they are doing, and most of the time the wound is extremely big and the dog needs at least a week to recover.
It became more clear when the Bosnian vet came to visit our team in the afternoon. But more later about that special visit.
Svjetlana obviously felt a lot of fear trusting the medical team with her dogs, so we decided to take it slow and win her over. We thought when she would experience how we did our job, and she could see how short it would take for the dogs to recover, she would trust us in the end.
Because in Bosnia, these kind of things are new, in Holland we cannot imagine this, so again, it emphasizes the different world over here.

The building team started making a construction for the concrete floor. There will be places 6 large doghouses on this floor. We hope to make another 6 at the end of the week. But first the concrete shall be brought in tomorrow.

Marco, Veerle, Carin and Marina went to Tuzla in the afternoon. The came back with two dogs?
And the reported that the dogs looked much better compared to the last time.

In the afternoon a woman came to the shelter, she told that she was a vet. She offered to help henny.
I had a bad feeling about her, because of my experiences over the years. But henny wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt.
The first time she looked how henny did his job, she nearly fainted and had to sit down for a moment to catch her breath. The second time she offered to do some stitching. But when henny saw her skipping some layers, he called it a day. It is unbelievable that this lady is a vet and she is supposed to work in a vet clinic.
This is exactly why people have no clue about sterilizing, because their vets don’t even know what they are doing. It is really sad when you think about this.

The bus we have as a replacement for our broken car comes in handy, it is a perfect recovery for the dogs.
The benches are in the bus and it works out fine. Today 14 dogs were neutered.

7 pm we went back to the hotel. We grabbed a bite with the entire team and had a fun evening. It was a very successful day.

Tomorrow Suze and Fred will go the Bihac. A mother and 8 pups, and another frightened dog are waiting to be picked up by them. Elvira, a girl who helps the foundation a lot, takes care of these dog, but it is to much and she asked our help. Bihac is more than 360 kilometres away, and with the lacking of highways it will take all day for them.

Hopefully we will hear from Maja, our translator and the chairwoman of SDB Tuzla, when we will have an appointment with the municipality to check out the land they selected for us.

Tuesday, the 17th of April 2007
Because we stay in Orasje, we had to leave at 6.30 in the morning to be in Tuzla on time.
We had an appointment at half past eight with Maja, to catch up and check all the paperwork.
I really hate the road to Tuzla. First of all the road is awful, and second it is all driving through villages and it is really slow, third and most of all, there are an extreme amount of dogs. Regularly you see them along the road, hit by a car, or you see packs of dogs and I immediately start worrying about the next victim.
It takes 90 minutes, although it is only 70 kilometres. Al the time, I just sit or I am lying down in the backseat, my eyes closed always, so I will not be confronted with all the things I hate so much. Not a pleasant trip at all.

We were in Tuzla before we had the meeting. While drinking a cup of coffee, Maja showed us the drawings of the land. It were two pieces, not far away from one another. The text told us that both pieces were more than 1 hectare. The pictures didn’t give us useful information. I was really anxious. One of the nicest things was to see “Stichting Dierenopvang Bosnië” between all the Bosnian text. It was finally getting closer.

After a quick introduction we got in the car and followed the car from the official.
The first land was excellent, a big piece of flat land, next to a road, no houses nearby. It turned our heads, what if…….and what if we would…..and isn’t it wonderfull when……..
This piece was owned by the mining company, but wasn’t actually being used at the moment. So this was the best place to start a new shelter.

The second piece of land looked pretty. But we were not very relaxed, because it was an old fuel depot of the army. But that is not the problem, the real challenge was the small path on the other side. There was a sign that warned us, because of mines!!! There were ribbons to state not to come there.
Maja told us she spoke to an former Major, of the particular army, and he told there were no mines. It was just to keep away people. The old depot wasn’t used for more than 10 years, not even during the last war.
And there had been no actual battle at that spot, so it was not possible that there were mines at that place.
We accepted the explanation, but it was scary anyway.
The piece of land was divided in small fields, the birds whistled as hard as they did on the first land.
There were differences in height and therefore not easy to overlook.
The difference in height was mainly because of 3 bunkers, we could clearly see them. When I approached one of the bunkers to get on top, Eerhard shouted: “Wilma, stick to the path”. It was very special and strange to walk there. But our minds were not spinning with this piece of land, so we would focus on the first piece.

Maja called Slavko to make an appointment so that we could talk about the first piece of land. He had no time that day, so we would meet on Thursday at 9 o’clock in his office.

After checking the land, we drank something and ordered a pizza. We spoke more than an our with a reporter of a newspaper. She loves animals, has a dog herself, and she tries to bring the problem with the stray dogs under the attention. The problem is that she is not allowed to write everything, because the head-editor doesn’t let her.
When there is written something negative about the problem, the major will be offended, and the municipality will not let this happen. So there is a lot of censure, and now she tries to make an article with all sides of the story.
We talked about a lot of things, and it becomes more clear each time that many people have no clue of what is happening in their own town.
The reporter told me about her own experiences with the animals she loves so dearly. A dog of one of her friends got hit by a car, and his leg was broken. The vet practice in Tuzla euthanized the dog, because they had no idea what to do. We can not imagine these things. It makes me furious.
She even was afraid to take her own dog to the vet, because she has absolutely no faith at all in these people.
But what if something happened and she really had to go to the vet?
Let’s just hope there is a good vet somewhere in Bosnia, and this vet crosses our path!
After the meeting with the reporter, Maja told us somebody called her about selling a piece of land with a house. At first we thought it would be nothing, but we made an appointment just to be sure.
We met this man at a gas station, and he told us about the land and the house, and it became clear that this was much to expensive. This would cost us a lot more than the 10.000 euro we had in mind.
We thanked him for his offer and left.
At the end of the afternoon we were back in Orasje.

Suze and Fred left early in the morning for Bihac, to pick up the mom and the 8 pups, and some other dog.
Suze would call when they were close to Orasje, so that Willeke, Peter and I could go to the shelter to welcome them. Also Svjetlana and Jana(our translator) would be there. During the day a kennel was prepared for these new arrivals. We already knew that only the mom and her babies would come, they didn’t succeed in catching the other dog. I was very nervous, don’t ask me why!
Suze called at 18.45 pm to tell they would be there in 15 minutes. We rushed to the shelter, and after 5 minutes Suze and Fred arrived.
How adorable! And what a lovely momma dog!
You can read all about them in the report of Suze and Fred.
But we can tell you that the past few days it was clear that these mother and her pups are wonderful, and we are planning to pick them up in about a month, they will get an excellent new life. The mother dog experienced to much already in her short life and she deserves to lead a happy life in the future.
After putting the dogs in their new kennel, with some food and water, we went for dinner. The rest of the team was already in the restaurant. Tired but satisfied we hit the sack.

Wednesday, the 18th of April 2007
A beautiful new day, sweet dogs, lots of cuddling and making pictures.
Daily around 15 dogs are being sterilized. Untill now without complications and the dogs recover very quick.
The medical team was extended with one more member, Sandra, a young Bosnian vet.
I was in contact with her before and she came to the shelter in Tuzla. Sandra really aims to start her own practice in Banja Luka and she is eager to fight against the problems with stray dogs.
Sandra is not able to do this by her self, so she asked us for help. To know if she is a good vet, I asked her to come to Orasje and work with our medical team.
The impression is okay, the operations went well, she knows what to do and how to do it. She didn’t faint so that is a bonus!!! Sandra will work with us the rest of the week.

Peter has been welding all day, Marco helped with finishing the kennels.
Suze, Fred and Eerhard started making doghouses and finished 3 of them today.
Marina and Carin do what’s necessary. Carin cleans the sets for operating, and keeps an eye on the dogs in the recovery. Marina helps Svjetlana cleaning, and occasionally helps the medical team.
After a couple of days, it becomes clear that in contrary to Tuzla, there is no real hard work in Orasje.
Today we were treated, a couple of acquaintances of Svjetlana made us fish soup. This was freshly prepared especially for us. We didn’t fancy the way they made the soup at first, everything that is on the fish is thrown in the kettle. Heads, fins, eggs and all the rest is part of the soup.
Most of us ate the soup, and I have to admit, it was really nice.

Thursday, the 19th of April 2007
Today we, Eerhard, Marco and I, had to leave for Tuzla. We had an appointment at 9 o’clock with Slavko, the deputy major and chief of the department city development. We wanted to talk about the pieces of land that we visited last Tuesday. Buy and start would be the ultimate, but of course it was not that easy.
They told us Tuesday that the land supposed to be owned by the mining company, but now they said they were not so sure anymore.
So they had to find out who was the owner, and because of lacking of administration done with a computer, you can imagine this would take longer than 5 minutes. We can do nothing before we know who the real owner is, and is very frustrating to experience these kind of things, it doesn’t seem to come to an end.

Because we do not give up easy, we tried to talk to the mining company. Maybe they could tell us something more. First we went to Faruk, our lawyer, and he immediately arranged an appointment with the mining company, within half an hour we were talking to a guy from the mining company.
Unfortunately he could not tell us either. He called for someone and gave an order to find out.
Maja gave her telephone number and this gentlemen would call her if he knew more about the ownership.
It was a bit of a disappointment that we did not make progress.
After a quick bite we went back to Orasje. We would have liked to talk some more to our lawyer but because of an unexpected visit he was not able to.

Tonight we were all invited to have dinner with Svjetlana and her husband Joesoef. In the beginning of the evening we all signed the contracts for our cooperation with the shelter in Orasje. Soon we will be placing some of the dogs for adopting on a distance. Also we made a contract for placing some dogs in Holland, the contracts are to avoid problems in the future. After signing the papers we could all relax.
It was a very pleasant evening, and we were stuffed with food and drinks the entire evening.
henny, Joesoef and Svjetlana made some speeches and here and there some tears dropped.
In the end, everybody went to bed tired and more than satisfied.

Friday, the 20th of April 2007
The last day.
We arrived earlier this morning, because we knew the major was coming to the shelter.
Only two dogs had to be neutered, and Svetlana brought her own dogs. Also a cat would be brought to the shelter, there was something with its leg.
The major arrived in time, we walked around the shelter and Svjetlana told him what was done and what still had to be done in time. The major told that he couldn’t do much(they all say the same). I told him that this small shelter in Orasje was something to very proud of, because I would say it was one of the best I had ever seen in Bosnia. He appreciated this and was happy to hear this.
When he was ready to leave I showed him the puppies form Bihac, because they are so adorable. He loved them and couldn’t refuse to pet one of them. He told he had two dogs himself.
Also Svjetlana and I had to tell our story in front of the camera. Later in the afternoon Sandra told us that her mother called and told her that there was an article in a newspaper in Banja Luka about the work of the Dutch volunteers in Orasje, and there would go dogs back to Holland with them.
Hopefully the major is planning to do something for the stray-animals in Orasje, and for the little shelter that is a great asset for his town.
After the last sterilisations, the gentlemen that brought in his dog the day before, to sterilize, brought in the cat I told you about before. The poor thing stepped in acid with its paw, and not much was left.
The remaining was not more than some flesh, all read. It looked horrible, and henny said that the cat had to be in agony. henny decided to amputate the leg. After one hour the cat was waking up in the bench. We hope he will recover quickly, and will have no pain anymore.

Meanwhile Willeke and Suze sorted out all the medical equipment. It is better to know what we need the next time we will visit Tuzla. All the medical stuff will be stored with Svjetlana. A lot of things are used the past week, although it wasn’t as busy as it always is in Tuzla.
Over 60 dogs are neutered, even the dogs Svjetlana refused to do in the beginning. But as the days past, she got more faith in the “doctor”. This was her first experience and it is a giant step for her to let us do all this with her dogs.
The building team worked till one o’clock in the afternoon and cleared up everything. I talked over some things with Svjetlana and took some pictures, and then Peter and I left for the hotel also.
We were planning to leave early, because we had to get the bus back to Wurzburg and change it for another car.
If we would leave some hours before the rest, we hoped to join the others in the end.
12 dogs could come to Holland. All week it was eleven, but in the end Marina decided to take the small puppy that stayed at Svjetlana’s house. There were three cars, and the dogs were equally spread over the cars.
They would pick up the dogs around 10 pm.

I was hoping to be at the arrival, but we were not sure of that was possible. At 7.30 pm Peter and I left for Wurzburg.

Saturday, the 21st of April 2007
At half past 5 in the morning we arrived at Wurzburg. It was much to early, but I was afraid the stop along the road and sleep because I would not be sure to be in time.
The car that replaced the bus was brought in at 8 o’clock exactly, and soon we were back on the road again.
The rest of the team had a lead more than an hour and a half and because I was eager to be at the arrival, I asked them to slow down so that we could catch up.
We arrived 5 minutes after them. The dogs behaved very well in the cars. And within a short time there was a crowd, all people picking up their dogs. It is still very special coming home with all these new dogs.

It was a very special week. You can not compare this to a week in Tuzla, were we are used to chaos, drama and bizarre situations. In Orasje no puppies or dogs had to be euthanized because of illness.
There were no abortions, because there were no dogs that were pregnant.
There have been 65 dogs castrated and one cat had an operation where its leg was amputated.
No complications, all went smoothly.
Kennels and houses are build for the dogs.
It had been a week without difficult, crazy or tough decisions.
For us this was a relieve and the proof there are people in Bosnia that care about the animals in the streets.
People that spend all their time and give their love to these animals. We are very proud being part of this, and we will continue helping Orasje.
This trip a lot is done, also thanks to Dutchy Puppy. This organisation donated 2250 euro to use in Orasje.
1500 euro is donated to the shelter to buy materials. This resulted in the concrete that was brought in, and the sand, roofs and all the materials needed for the new kennels was bought.
In the next few weeks the kennels will be finished and more dogs will have their own safe place.

The remaining 750 euro was used to buy the medical equipment to perform the operations in the shelter.

Dutchy Puppy, again, thank you very much for your support, on behalf of all the dogs in Orasje!!

Thanks to the donation of a welder, Peter was able to weld the whole week and with that he could make a lot of new kennels. Paul Valster, thanks for this huge gesture!

And finally I would like to thank everybody that came along and gave their 100%, Henny, Willeke, Marco and Veerle, Tanja and Eerhard, Suze and Fred, Carin and Marina and of course Peter.
Without these people the SDB would not be what it is today!

Love,
Wilma de Joode (chairwoman)

9th of April 2007, Market in a small town called Drunen
On the second day of easter, the SDB had a market stall at the easter-event in Drunen. At 9 o’clock we had to be there, because otherwise we could not get the car in the right place to unload. So it was an early morning.
Right in time we arrived, and at half past 9 the stall was fully set up, waiting for the action to happen from 11 o’clock!
Our neighbours for the day were very pleasant, the local office of our animal protection society, Waalwijk, en next to them there was a rodent-shelter. All animal-lovers together.
It turned out to be a lovely day, and there were a lot of visitors. We had a portfolio with pictures, available for anyone interested, and together with the collecting-box it draw a lot of attention.
In our shop we had toys, leads, gift sets and bones for sale.
At 17 o ‘clock we were at the end of a busy and succesfull day. We can be proud to mention the profit was 170 euro for all our sweet dogs in Bosnia.

6th of april 2007:
For starters, unfortunately we were not able to translate for some time. But we will do our utmost to keep you posted. We cannot translate everything, but we will pick the most important recent news, just to get you informed.

4th of April, all sorts of news
A short Visit to Bosnie, Eerhard, Tanja and Wilma
This visit was very positive and finally left with a good feeling about everything that happened those days.
Our quest seems to be paying of finally. We have a complete report, but it is in Dutch for now.
In short, the municipality is enthusiastic and is interested in helping us eventually. But we have to be patient. That is the hard part.
They are planning to prosecute Mrs. Sabic and they have no intention working with her.
They want her to understand that she cannot go on like this, thinking they will put up with her behaviour.

Coming trip in April
The 13th of april a Group of 14 volunteers will be leaving for Bosnia. They will roll up their sleeves and work a whole week to get things done that should be done.
We are going to help in Orasje, because we are not allowed to go to the shelter in Tuzla.
If we are allowed in the shelter at the last moment, then we will work in Tuzla as much as possible. We will be needed by then, because the dogs are neglected.
In Orasje 63 dogs need to be neutered. The shelter needs to be expanded, and a lot of kennelsneed to be build.
So there will be no boredom!
Off course there will be a full report of our trip with pictures and everything after we are back.

Donation Dutchy Puppy
The request for help from SDB to get some help from a Dutch foundation calles Dutchy Puppy, paid off.
They donated an amount of 1.500,- euro to help the shelter in Orasje. With that money we can achieve a lot.
Off course we are very thankful for that gift.
After our trip we will report to Dutchy Puppy, in that way they can see where the money went.

Dog needs home!
A couple of dogs go home with us, to start a new life. Most of the dogs will find a new home very quickly. But unfortunately two dogs, Louis and Kai, are still waiting for a place to live. The deserve a new prosperous live. How is it possible they are still waiting? Okay, they need a bit of raising, and you have to have some patience, but all considered, they are really amazing sweet dogs. We do hope they will find their “golden basket” soon.

5 year anniversary
In oktober 2007, the SDB will excist 5 years, and we would like to celebrate this. But it must be a special celebration.
I hereby ask anyone, to come up with ideas for celebrating our foundation.
Please mail your tips, plans and ideas to: infohondenopvang@gmail.com