Focusing on Projects

Only with your support we can help dogs and cats in Bosnia.

We have a number of ways you can support, and 1 of them is adoption on a distance.

With the benefits of adoption on a distance, we pay all expenses for the dogs in the shelter of Orasje. They are getting the best possible care.

But more importantly, Sterilization! Because by sterilizing stray dogs we prevend dogs from being born and live a horrible life. By making a contribution for a sterilization, we can pay the costs for the sterilization of a large amount of stray animals, we can hire our Bosnian vet Harris to go to a location where there are too much strays and where there is a good cooperation with local animal protectors and the municipality. By doing this we are not limited to two times a year when we go there with the Dutch veterinary surgeons.

Besides supporting the care and the organization of sterilization projects, we also have great educational material. We go to schools ourselves, or the local volunteers visit the children during our absence, to explain how to deal with (stray) animals in a respectful way. The children can share their stories, and we teach them the positive side! You can sponsor books for a classroom for only 10 euro!

Careful:

All the work our organization is doing is only being done by volunteers, and all costs for the trips being made are paid by the volunteers themselves. Each euro that our foundation receives will be spend on the animals. There are hardly any costs for office materials, use of telephone or other general matters, because our volunteers just want all donations to be used for the animals only. So no sticky fingers, allowances or bonuses when you are working in our foundation!

Orasje

In April a few jobs will have to be done to improve the working conditions of the staff and the lives of 151 dogs. The past winter months they have had a lot of snow and cold in Orasje. At a certain moment it was too much to get the car close to the shelter and they had to walk all the way from the road with a sled with the prepared food. This is hard work.

There are some jobs on the wish list of Svjetlana, but we will really have to make choices, because we can not do everything. At present, the food is the most important. There is no way to get the food through the borders, so we buy it locally. That costs us 2500 euro for 3 months, awful lot of money, but what can we do. We can not ignore the dogs.

The reason we are not getting it across the borders is the paperwork. For the transportation of food you will have to have certificates issued by a veterinarian. But it is difficult for a veterinarian to issue a statement about the quality. We will keep trying, even though it is very frustrating.

The construction work for April is currently being prepared, we will probably build an extra field for the dogs to run freely, build the wooden cabin and small maintenance/repair of locks and hinges. Furthermore, all fences will be equipped with smaller mesh to make it impossible for the dogs to attack each other, there have been too many accidents the last few months.

Zenica

Terribly exciting!

The weekend of February 23 a mini-sterilization project was organized, and almost 30 stray dogs were sterilized by Harris, the Bosnian vet. The municipality Zenica is so enthusiastic that they hire him every month.

In April Dutch group of volunteers will leave for Zenica to do the big sterilization project. We have set the target number on 200 animals! The Org SAPA from Jelena already began preparations. She has a great team of volunteers and they will do everything possible to get the dogs to be sterilized. She asked us to stay longer, but unfortunately our days are limited. We are pleased that we bring doctors from the Netherlands, and that Harris will assist us again. Besides all these people, also Nedim will join us. This ambitious young man we know from Tuzla, where he still lives, studies and works. He is always with us during the sterilization campaigns. Nedim is a very special, passionate man who will do anything to become a capable vet.

You can sponsor sterilizations! Find out how by emailing info@hondenopvang.com.

Bihac

Unfortunately, It is not going very well in Bihac at the moment. Elvira is struggling with personal problems which makes it difficult to work constructively. Currently she focuses too much on the re-homing of dogs, and as long as she is very active with this, we can not look at a structural approach.  We have sent a document with all necessary steps, we did not get response on this so far.

Other locations

Glamoc

A while ago we received a mail from a Bosnian veterinarian who has been living and working in America. He knew a young lady who is committed to the animals in Glamoč. This lady is called Jelena, to make it confusing this is the third Jelena we have to deal with!

But because we can not do everything at once, we have shown her what to do, and when and how we could possibly help her. We are in contact regularly and yesterday we got some pictures of her that shows that the region where she works will cost a lot of energy to change things for the better.

Bosanski Petrovac

There appears to be serious plans for a shelter in Bosanski Petrovac, as a location for the region. That may sound positive, but we are more aware of the risks. Sometimes it is better for a dog to roam the streets then to be locked up in a hell, as in Tuzla, and in fact also Sarajevo, even though the last one is very well intentioned.

Bratunac

In Bratunac one is seriously looking into the possibilities for establishing a shelter. We will keep an eye on these plans.