After all the years of being involved with the Mdzananda Animal Clinic, I still find myself searching for understanding of what it is all about - for me, and the people and pets of the community I have been fortunate to help for more than a decade now.

During this time I have met many people who work to help animals - some who are totally dedicated to changing the world for animals, those who take a more practical, maybe more pragmatic approach and, sadly, those who see animal work as an opportunity to enrich themselves in other ways.

Mdzananda recently joined a forum of animal welfare groups with the purpose of cooperating and working together and it comforts me knowing that we all have the same vision and a common goal of making a difference for animals.

But not all organisations play by the rules of being responsible and ethical in their approach - particularly when it comes to fundraising. There are organisations and individuals who regularly manipulate the public with baseless appeals for money - often making false or exaggerated claims to persuade compassionate donors to part with their money.

We know of one organisation that offers discounted sterilisations to people who can afford private veterinarians. This organisation gets these animals sterilised as ˜township pets' at private vets for welfare rates and then turn a profit on the sterilisations.

Organisations like this abuse private veterinarians, donors, other welfare groups and resources funded by public money. At a time when money and donor money in particular has never been tighter, this way of doing business gives other animal welfare groups a bad name.

 

 

 

As someone who has worked in animal welfare for some time, I recommend that potential donors should not be gullible. Don't give any group your hard earned money without first getting a reference on the organisation's credibility from other animal welfares or veterinarians.

These groups often tug at the heart strings using words like "emergency" to try and extract donations in a hurry from a public eager to help. If it's truly an emergency there are many animal welfare groups who would be only too willing to react when called upon. And if the group is bona fide, they will have no problem in you checking them out first - in fact they should welcome it.

Moving on, those of you who haven't visited our clinic recently, should really try and do so. We've made so many improvements - all with the interests of our patients and their owners at heart, and our wonderful staff of course. With my architectural background I'm determined to improve the physical space and am constantly working on the improvements in the overall running of the veterinary and staff side of things.

To be hands on in this work is definitely for the more emotionally robust. Not that we often come across deliberate cases of cruelty, but sometimes when people are poorly educated and do not have access to veterinary services we sometimes come across very difficult cases.

We're fortunate that the SPCA inspectorate is available to us and more and more frequently it is the general public that alerts us to cases of deliberate cruelty, which is a sure sign of a growing awareness among the communities where we work.

There is lots of pleasure to be taken from knowing that our hard working and motivated team at clinic are able to help hundreds of animals each. And we engage daily with our neighbours who so enjoy the vibrant buzz of clinic and are greatly admiring of our garden.

It really is a pleasure and an honour to be associated with Mdzananda.

 

IFAW for their ongoing financial support, advice and expertise.

Recent assistance from other welfares:
Animal Welfare for their assistance with doing X-rays and operations that we are unable to perform.
TEARS for their donation of carry boxes and panel heaters.
SPCA's prompt intervention by their inspectorate.
Cart Horse Protection Association for helping the horses in our area.

ARO for assisting us with sterilisations.
African Tails for providing surrogate moms.
Adopt-a-Pet for adopting out our puppies.

Donations of Dog food and products for our dog show from:
Nestle Purina
Wuma dog food
Norpharm
MCP drug wholesalers
Oceana Brands

Note: The dog show had to be cancelled because of bad weather, but we will soon be announcing a new date for it to be held in Spring. All the donations have been put to one side in anticipation of the big event.

We are eternally grateful to our donor's generosity. We try to thank donors by email, letter or phone. At times people make EFT donations and send cheques without contact details. This makes it difficult for us to trace donors and acknowledge them. Please if you are kind enough to make a donation to Mdzananda let us know by emailaing Mdzananda@absamail.co.za

Surrogate puppy mothers.

Although we do not subscribe to a no kill policy, we decided to try and save two litters of six new born puppies each. We were so moved by the tragic circumstances of both nursing mothers - one was run over by a car, and the other was the victim of appalling cruelty and had to be euthanased - that we decided to try and save their puppies. Thank you to volunteers from African Tails and Charne Sivertson and friends for hand rearing these pups.

Saturdays is traditionally a very busy day at clinic. If the weather is good people queue up for treatment.

Mdzananda believes we are making a huge impact on the community and have detected a an increasing awareness of respect for animals. Recently several local residents have handed in puppies that have been found roaming in the streets. The local police brought in a large tortoise they had found while on patrol and recently Metro police contacted us to rescue a dog stuck in a storm water drain.

Our case load is increasing on a daily basis. Our very dedicated team tries very hard to please our clients and although we do not have an after hours facility, the staff that live near to clinic will always respond to an emergency call out. In these cases their first priority is to ensure the hurt pet is not in pain and to stabilise the animal until they can be seen by Dr Rozelle Theron our vet.

Our team giving 'Draino' a bath after rescuing him from a
stormwater drain.

Skye Roberto was humanely euthanised after a struggling with cancer for several years.
We were all very touched by her fight for life and decided to establish a water feature at clinic which was opened during a memorial service in memory of Skye at our clinic.

Water feature in memory of Skye Roberto

Mdzananda relies heavily on volunteers who live near to clinic and give generously of their time to help us with tasks that range from recently putting up a verandah to provide shade and shelter to the waiting area outside our consulting container.

With their help we are able to save enormous amounts of costs by recycling bottles, refilling them with dewormer, antiparasitic top spot applications and mange treatments. We're working to stop dipping and subsequently contaminating the environment with toxic substances and to do that we provide bottles of mange and antiparasitic treatments to people who cannot bring their pets to our clinic or mobile clinics.

Volunteers starting to put up a verandah outside the
consulting room.

The Cart Horse Protection Association (CHPA - www.carthorse.org.za) recently approached us to hold a clinic for horses, donkeys and mules at Mdzananda. We were delighted with their offer and when no-one arrived with their horses for treatment, we took the CHPA to Mandelabos on the outskirts of Khayelitsha. They were able to treat at least 10 horses.

Cart Horse team discussing the options with horse owner.

Mdzananda is turning its neighbourhood Green! We recently initiated food gardening with our neighbours by filling loads of old tyres with compost and sand, and lined the pavement on the street outside clinic with them. Everyone got stuck into planting seedlings and seeds.

We have also started a recycling station for our immediate neighbours and collecting glass, tins and plastic. Our main objectives is to raise environmental awareness in the neighborhood and raise funds, some of which we will use to make more food gardens in the neighbourhood as well as to supplement the clinic's income.

Our recycling depot in its infancy.

About three years ago, Flea was brought into Mdzananda by the HIV/Aids project in Site B. She was a skinny, mangy, smelly puppy. Jane Levinson decided to take her home to foster, but that quickly became her permanent home as she turned out to be irresistible. In May Flea entered the SPCA Mutt of the year competition and won second place.

Jane and Flea

Edgemead Primary School's environment group made it their business to get a pet food drive going with all classes in their school. Their persistence paid off and we were able to collect a bakkie load of dog and cat food and other pet treats.

The Cape Handlers dog club also ran a food and pet accessories drive among their members.

We were all delighted to receive their wonderful donations.

Enthusiastic members of Edgemead's environmental club handing over pet food

Account name: Mdzananda Animal Clinic
Bank: Standard Bank Rondebosch
Branch code: 025009
Bank Account Number: 075595710
Bank transit (SWIFT) Number: SBZAZAJJ