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The festive season is only about a month away and already the Mdzananda Animal Clinic in Khayelitsha has had an influx of homeless pets they need to care for.
The clinic is a non-profit veterinary clinic and not specifically a shelter. They have a small shelter programme which can only cater for 15 dogs and 15 cats.
Fundraising and communications manager of the clinic, Marcelle du Plessis, said the festive season is a happy time for most people but for them it is the hardest time of the year.
“Right now we have 33 stray cats in our small facility and 28 in foster care – we’re already overcapacity,” said du Plessis.
She said in just two days 11 abandoned dogs were brought to the clinic. Young boys from the community saw a dog giving birth to five puppies in a field. They walked 3km to Mdzananda to bring them in. She said the same day an hour later a young boy brought a heavily pregnant dog to the clinic and the clinic’s general manager found a small dog dumped outside the clinic’s yard.
Du Plessis said three more dogs were handed over to them the next day by the owners who no longer wanted them.
“From now until January community members go to the Eastern Cape without having solutions of where their pets can go and they get abandoned, handed over to us or even thrown over our walls at night,” said Du Plessis.
The clinic is appealing to the public to help them deal with the influx of abandoned pets in the upcoming months.
They are asking for any donation, big or small, to assist them through this difficult time.
“It costs us R1 530 to keep a stray pet for two months. This is just to cover their sterilisation, vaccinations, deworming, flea and tick treatment and food and excludes all other costs such as staff, electricity, water etcetera.”
