December Update: A Winter of Challenges and Hope
The winter months are particularly harsh for the stray animals in Georgia. Freezing temperatures, political unrest, and rampant animal cruelty create a perfect storm for the spread of viral diseases, compounded by starvation and hypothermia. Despite these challenges, we remain committed to our mission, and we are deeply grateful for the unwavering support of our donors and partners.
Our GoFundMe fundraiser in honor of Mariam’s birthday is still ongoing. Your support is crucial—please consider contributing here.
Many of the strays we help are either born on the streets or abandoned by their so-called owners. When we suspect a dog has been recently abandoned, we reach out to the local community to confirm the situation before intervening.
Below, you’ll find a summary of our work in December, including sterilisations, medical treatments, and adoptions. We also wanted to share some heartwarming Christmas and New Year greetings from former strays now living in loving forever homes.
Thank you for standing with us during these difficult times. Together, we are making a difference.
Sterilisations
Dogs sterilised by Zero Strays Georgia are tagged with a yellow ear tag. Sterilisations are mainly concentrated in the area around Zugdidi and surrounding villages, as well as Kutaisi and Svaneti. We sterilise strays as well as pets from financially stretched families to prevent pets from being abandoned. This month we sterilised 14 dogs, preventing approximately 100 dogs from being born on the streets of Georgia.
- We helped to sterilise five female dogs in Kutaisi with the help of volunteer Maka Bazadze.
- We also helped out our Polish friend Karolina to sterilise one pregnant dog who has an owner and has given birth to dozens of puppies in the past years.
- Two dogs were sterilised in Zugdidi
- We sponsored the sterilisation of five dogs in Samtredia with help of volunteer Karolina Akmak.
- We sterilised one pregnant, family owned dog.
Adopt a stray!
Are you interested in adopting one of our beautiful dogs? Submit our adoption form here.
This month, four lovely dogs found new homes in the Netherlands, Latvia and Poland.
We’re strongly opposed to dog smuggling, and take most care when preparing and moving our dogs to their new overseas homes. The process takes a minimum of six months and includes chipping, rabies vaccination, blood test check at a certified lab in Germany, complex vaccinations and issuing of an official vet certificate from the Institute of Agriculture of Georgia.
Most of our foster dogs have undergone this preparation process and are ready to travel to their forever homes. We always fly our dogs from Georgia to their final destination.
We also facilitate local adoptions and are very happy to share that Hope and Toy have been adopted by their wonderful foster homes, which have now turned into their forever homes.
Zero Strays Georgia in the media
Raising awareness about the situations for stray dogs in Georgia is a key part of our work – in Georgia as well as internationally.
We are happy to share a CNN article from the Czech Republic that brings up the situation of Georgian strays, and Paul’s and Lucky’s stories. Check it out here.
Some of our other media features can be found at the bottom of our landing page.
Medical cases
We always do our best to see to the most urgent medical cases. This month we have been treating cases of babesia, wounds caused by people deliberately shooting strays, as well as cancer cases. As we do not have our own facilities, we treat strays on the streets when possible, or with the help of local vets at their vet facilities. Locals may then be able to foster a dog under treatment – either for free or against a fee depending on the case and if the local person is a Zero Strays Georgia volunteer. We never bring dogs under treatment to our other foster homes, as we need to ensure the stray under treatment is free from viruses or other contagious illnesses.
Season greetings from our former strays
We are so grateful to all of you who decided to adopt a Georgian stray, and we were very pleased to receive an amazing display of Christmas and New Year’s greetings from quite a few of you!
Piri is taking a run in the top video, while Coco is posing in front of the Christmas tree and Spencer, despite his seniority, is vacationing in the beautiful mountains.
We also received a lovely greeting from Amsterdam: “Happy New Year from Amsterdam❤️! Lots of love from Silk and Jocelyn. Silk is almost 5 years old and now for 4 years in Amsterdam thanks to the help of Mariam”.
Martina and Jara sent us a New Year’s greeting from Munich, Germany: “
“Jara and I would like to wish you a Happy New Year! We wish you good health and that all your wishes and resolutions come true.
Jara is enjoying her first winter in Germany and I am happy to be able to accompany her on her journey. She is very curious, lovable and full of life. You can’t tell that she was born without eyes.”
Updates from our beautiful foster homes
At Zero Strays Georgia, we have a different approach to foster care than most Georgian organisations. Instead of housing foster dogs in a larger shelter, we let them stay with local families living in rural locations outside Zugdidi. We currently have five family foster homes where we pay a monthly fee for each stray, which includes food, care and minor medical costs if necessary. This is a great way to make life in foster care as comfortable as possible for the strays, and brings some much needed income for rural families in Georgia.
Former stray Paul is recovering from severe illness, injuries and surgery at Salome’s foster home. Paul remains rather scared of leaving the house and will need continuous training before he is ready to leave for his forever home in the Czech Republic.
Meanwhile, former stray Lucky is undergoing his forever home preparations at Larisa’s foster home. Lucky is slowly adapting to being around dogs and humans, and to play and socialise. So far it is going amazingly well, with Larisa’s non-castrated French bulldog being the only dog Lucky finds it a bit difficult to get along with.
