Be a Honey and keep Khayelitsha pets warm this winter

Dear Animal Friends If you’ve started to feel the icy chill in the Cape Town air, be sure to know that the animals in Khayelitsha are feeling it too – especially little Honey.

On the 4th of December 2015 Honey was born in a sandy patch in our garden. Her mommy, a Maltese poodle, was brought to Mdzananda to be sterilized when out popped six little puppies. Honey was one of them. Unfortunately the joyous bundles suffered from a terrible virus called Parvo, a highly contagious viral disease that is life threatening. Five of the pups were not strong enough to fight the virus, even with treatment, but Honey was strong - she escaped the virus. This healthy puppy grew fast and her personality bloomed. She became playful, excitable and absolutely loved humans and animals alike. Month by month her friends got adopted but for some strange reason Honey did not get her special home. Now, six months later, Honey is still patiently waiting for her forever home but winter is coming and small breed puppies struggle in the cold. Winter is not an easy time at the Mdzananda Animal Clinic. Mdzananda treats up to 1000 sick animals per month through consultations, hospitalization, surgery and mobile clinics. When they arrive at Mdzananda they are sick, hurt and afraid. Now they are cold too. During the 2015 winter we had an enormous influx of pets brought to Mdzananda with hypothermia, a condition of having an abnormally and dangerously low body temperatures. The amount of puppies and dogs admitted to our hospital in this state was overwhelming. We treated them with warm food (some needing force feeding), hot water bottles, warmed IV drips and vigorous body rubbing to help create blood flow and warmth. Some did not make it - many were saved.

It comes down to educating the community about taking special care of their pets in winter. Many pets sleep outside on cold surfaces without blankets or kennels. During this winter we are educating as much as possible at our mobile clinics, in our consultation rooms and on the local radio station. We hope that this will avoid the influx of hypothermic pets brought to Mdzananda this winter. During winter our clinic is packed to the brim. Every cage is usually filled with patients knocked down by vehicles due to bad driving, illness from the cold and other injuries. Cages are small and some of the pets stay with us for weeks, others months. This can be problematic with no vitamin D exposure from the sun, lack of exercise and the cold weather. But we have a plan! We will not have cold pets this winter! We are building 24 new runs! Each run offers a space for recovering pets to have some exercise, access to vitamin D from the sun, a warm kennel, a soft pillow, a blanket and protection from the rain. Now isn’t that exciting! Two generous donors have donated a total of R65 000 for us to start construction of phase 1. We are overjoyed as we construct with love. If you know anything about the Khayelitsha culture you will know that people celebrate all things good by gathering, singing and dancing. Our staff members are so excited and have been singing and dancing as building materials have been arriving.

Share in our joy by watching our video of our staff constructing and singing

Phase one will construct 8 runs and we need your help to build the rest. We need your help to assist the sick pets that are brought to Mdzananda during this cold winter season. Could you help us by making a donation, big or small, towards construction? Could you help by making a donation towards facility upgrades to keep our animals comfortable this winter? Or could you assist with a donation towards food, kennels and medicines for sick animals? The animals of Khayelitsha are BOW WOWing for your helping paws. Please consider donating some goods or making a financial donation towards helping them. Below are some goodies we need to make this dream a reality.

To make this possible we will require cement, sand, stone, wire mesh, cement blocks, brick force, roof sheeting, guttering, timber and gates totaling R95 474. Each of the 24 runs will be equipped with a dog kennel, blanket, hot water bottle and dog bed totaling R15 080. During winter we also make use of a lot of dog and cat food, cat littler, washing powder, black bags, leads and collars, newspapers and wooden pallets to construct kennels.

Honey would like to thank everyone in advance for their assistance. The Mdzananda Animal Clinic would not be in existence, helping all the animals of Khayelitsha, if it was not for our wonderful donors and supporters. Honey is currently in foster care with a lovely family who are thinking about making her a permanent addition to the family. We are holding thumbs for this little one. She wishes everyone a comfortable winter ahead. Look after your pets and stay warm! With sincere gratitude (from the humans) and wags (from the important ones) Felipe Perdomo Director (and Honey)