FOUR PAWS South Africa – and partner SPCA Bethlehem (local SPCA branch) – celebrates World Animal Day with local community
Animal Awareness Day – brought to you by FOUR PAWS ZA & SPCA Bethlehem
On Saturday, 2 October FOUR PAWS South Africa will partner with the local Bethlehem SPCA for an Animal Awareness Day in celebration of World Animal Day which is celebrated on Monday, 4 October.
One of FOUR PAWS South Africa’s key focus areas is community and education outreach. We have chosen to extend our animal welfare work to the community closest to our LIONSROCK Big Cat Sanctuary, Vogelfontein. This Project aims to achieve two goals: increasing Community Welfare and Animal Welfare. We will aim to educate and uplift all animal guardians of domestic animals to not only be more responsible, but also better dog and cat owners, but to also offer free or subsidised health care for their animals assisting in the spread of disease.
We want to use the Animal Awareness Day – FOUR PAWS ZA in partnership with SPCA Bethlehem – as another steppingstone in educating and assisting the community of Vogelfontein to become better, and more responsible pet owners.
Our goals/ activities for the day:
- Creating awareness amongst Vogelfontein’s community about being more responsible pet owners
- Introducing the team of SPCA who are there to assist community & FOUR PAWS who are there to do pet census
- Dipping 100 dogs for ticks and fleas with warmer weather upon us
- Providing a space where the community can ask questions they might have about their pets, etc
- Distributing 500 Responsible Pet Care leaflets and 50 children’s Education Packs
- Providing 100 -150 care packs with food and dewormer for dogs & cats
- Providing 100 rabies vaccinations
- Contact Name: Tanya van Tonder
- Contact Email: tanya.van.tonder@four-paws.org.za
- Location: Cape Town
- Organised by: Tanya van Tonder
In celebration of World Animal Day, we partnered with the local Bethlehem SPCA for an Animal Awareness Day in Vogelfontein. This community of just over 1 000 homes lies closest to our LIONSROCK Big Cat Sanctuary in the Free State town of Bethlehem. Our main goal was to create awareness amongst Vogelfontein’s community about being more responsible pet owners – and provide free rabies vaccinations for the community’s dogs. With rabies being a hot topic in South Africa at the moment and outbreaks happening in certain provinces, including Free State, we thought it wise to offer rabies vaccinations as part of our World Animal Day celebrations.
We created a space where the community could ask questions they might have about their pets and their care, as well as an area for the children of this community to come and enjoy some educational animal welfare related activities. More than 200 Responsible Pet Care leaflets were distributed, 50 children’s Education Packs, more than 240 kg of pet food was distributed, and just under 100 rabies vaccinations was administered along with dewormer.
FOUR PAWS South Africa would like to thank our partner in this day Bethlehem SPCA, as well as our colleagues and vet from LIONSROCK Big Cat Sanctuary.