October Update: Stray Animal Rescue and Care in Georgia
What a month it’s been! Political turmoil and the approaching winter have prompted us to act quickly and efficiently to make the most of our available funds. This month, we’ve made significant strides in our mission to help stray animals in Georgia. Over 44 sterilizations have been carried out, five strays have been sent abroad for adoption, and we’ve launched vital vaccination campaigns and medical treatments in Zugdidi and Kutaisi.
Georgia is a hotspot for numerous dangerous diseases, including rabies, parvovirus, and babesiosis. Vaccination is essential to reducing the suffering of strays and preventing the spread of these diseases. We’re committed to providing this life-saving care for as many animals as possible.
Grateful for Your Support
We are incredibly grateful for the donations we’ve received from our generous supporters. As a non-profit, our operations are funded entirely by donations and our own salaries. Every contribution, no matter the size, helps us continue our work. Our local partners, including vet clinics and zoo shops, assist us with sterilizations and medical treatments at a reduced rate, helping us stretch our funds further. We also have a credit tab with our partners, which we pay off monthly.
How You Can Help
If you’ve reached out to us about injured strays, urgent sterilizations, or adoption inquiries, we truly appreciate your involvement! Here’s how we manage requests for injured animals:
- Can we find a local volunteer or arrange a taxi (via Bombora) to transport the animal to the vet?
- Post-treatment care: If we take in an injured stray, we often need to provide foster care—which costs us 100 GEL per month for an unknown duration. Currently, we have over 60 dogs in foster care and are unable to take on more at this time.
How to Reach Us About Injured Strays
When you contact us about an injured stray, please provide the following information:
- Pinned location of the animal
- A photo of the stray(s)
- Any financial support or other assistance you can offer
Our Limitations
Please note that Zero Strays Georgia operates with limited resources, and we do not have:
- A physical office
- A treatment center
- A dedicated foster facility (we rely on family homes in villages outside Zugdidi)
- A vehicle for transport
Understanding Ear Tags: What Do the Colors Mean?
If you’ve ever wondered about the ear tag colors we use on our rescued dogs, here’s a quick guide:
- Green ear tags: Dogs neutered and vaccinated for rabies and core vaccines (from Mayhew).
- Yellow ear tags: Our strays that have been neutered and vaccinated for rabies.
- Red ear tags: Dogs that have been neutered and vaccinated for rabies.
Success Stories and Struggles
As always, we want to share the heartwarming success stories as well as the challenges we face daily in this important work. Your continued support and understanding make all the difference.
We have found new homes
LouLou, Sammy, Jara, Scotty, Sonia and Sirius are sending autumn greetings from their forever homes. LouLou and Sammy have just settled in, Scotty, Sonia and Sirus travelled not long ago and lovely Jara is sharing autumn energy with you all.
Preparing a stray for overseas adoption is an extensive process and includes chipping, vaccinating, rabies immunity blood test check with a lab in Germany, vet check, paperwork from the Ministry of Agriculture. The list is long. However, as we’ve successfully facilitated a lot of adoptions over the past few years, we have a solid routine for how we go about it.
Greetje and Mathijs Schippers, Tongeren adopted LouLou and share: “We were thinking about adopting an older dog for a while already and we looked around a lot, and then we saw Loulou and it just was right she had to be the one. Since she is with us things are going well. Loulou gets along with our other dog Finn, they even play sometimes. We found Loulou on Setter Rescue Europe so we did not search for a dog from Georgia we were looking at setters because we love the breed. But we love all dogs. What’s so funny is that Loulou really helps Finn nu barking together to protect “their” territory.”
Linde Wouters from Lede, Belgium adopted Sammy and shares: “I have 3 Greek strays (via pawsome pets), and I fostered a lot of dogs. 3 of them were Georgian (Sally, Joey and one from Eka). So because of Sally I followed Zero Strays. When I saw Sammy my heart broke because of his story, and the rest is history😁 We’re not looking for another dog. But we didn’t want him to end up on the streets again. Sammy struggled a lot the first few days. We could feel his soul was broken before, but he warmed up very fast after that. Now he enjoys a lot of things, cuddles, food, a nice bed. When you touch him he still pulls away first or gets scared a bit and then he wiggles his little tail and licks our hands. I would advise anyone to adopt an old, sick or disabled dog. They are often looked over, yet they make the best pets. They deserve even more love and safety as any other dog!”
Jara is living her full on dog life with Martina Graf in Munich who shares: ““She is doing great and is a really great dog! She is very self-confident, knows exactly what she wants and what she doesn’t want. She has a mind of her own and protects her loved ones”
Some of our more recent forever home travellers are Sirius (Hoofddorp, NL), Sonia and Scotty (Germany). We can’t wait to hear more how they have settled in in a few weeks time.
We also have a postcard from some golden favourites who were adopted a few hyears ago. Mariam Shekiladze shares: “Four rescue dogs in dog heaven! Kirsten’s house.Kirsten is one of my favourite rescuers who helped us re-home around 50+ of our dogs in NL and Belgium with Helen. She is the worst foster ever! She fostered grace for a couple of days but failed and stayed there forever. Our golden tripawed Mateo she and her husband adopted after several plantings. Mateo and Grace are in the middle of the photo.”
Insane hardships and mistreatment of pets
Mariam Shekiladze shares: “The dog was pregnant and had an owner. She was on our neutering list for November, but I didn’t know she was already pregnant. The family planned to abandon her on the street, but Nona begged them not to, with the promise we would sterilize her in November. Today we received information that she was unable to give birth, couldn’t stand, and was close to death due to intoxication from the deceased puppies inside her. We performed urgent surgery today, removed the dead puppies, and neutered her. She is now on IV treatments and is in very poor condition. Vet Emzar is not very hopeful that she will survive 😭”
Amazingly enough, the little paw pulled through and is now recovering!
Dumped and left to die in the trash - Toy's miracle rescue part 2
Bin dump survivor Toy had urgent small surgery in Zugdidi with Emzar. Some metal stuff from the first surgery needed to be removed.
He is fostered by local volunteer Mariam Jean who helps us with free fostering for this lovely little boy who was dumped in a bin with severe leg fractures and injuries.
Sterilisations en masse
Through sterilisation we continue to try to prevent more stray dogs being born on the street. This month we carried out 44 sterilisations.
Mariam shares the following examples of this month’s sterilisation work:
- Neutered pregnant stray at Emzar Chachua, volunteer Nona Natchkebia
- Stray setter. Neutered at Emzar Chachua. Volunteer Maia Ekhvaia. Returned to the street.
- 4 dogs brought from Khobi by a very poor volunteer, Nia Rurua, who needs help. 2 dogs were pregnant, two were 6+ month-old puppies. All neutered and vaccinated returned to Khobi.
- Our sweetest and coolest volunteer in Zugdidi, Chacho. This dog was abandoned on Rustaveli street, already pregnant. When we asked for volunteer help to take her to the clinic for urgent neutering She rushed immediately. Neutered and vaccinated returned to the street.
- Neutered pregnant stray at George Tchurgulia. Volunteer Chacho.
- 3 neutered cats, all of them were adopted from the street by one woman. She has 11 cats in total.
- 3 stray dogs were also neutered today at Emzar Chachua. Volunteers: Maia Ekhvaia, Manana Kemularia.
- Female stray was neutered at George Tchurgulia. Volunteer: Salome Partsvania
- Neutered stray at Emzar Tchahcua. Volunteer: Maia Ekhvaia
- Two cats from Jvari were neutered today. The woman who got helped by us was super happy! 😍
- 3 more cats were neutered today 😍 All of them were adopted from the street. Families were thrilled to get free neutering.Women will bring dogs as well and maybe more cats. She came alone with cats from the village Rike. She takes care of many street dogs and cats with her mention only. She was crying from happiness when heated we could help with neutering. At this moment there are 6 puppies at her home as the stray she was feeding gave birth 😭
- 10 dogs, 4 cats neutered recently at Emzar Chachua.
- 3 recently neutered dogs
- We neutered these 2 females from Lechkhumi yesterday with the help of Volunteer Maka Bazgadze
Mayhew helping us with vaccinations
We are so grateful to Mayhew International Georgia who supported us in getting our 62 foster dogs vaccinated against rabies.
Preparing for November's sterilisation campaign
Our amazing Czech volunteers will visit for a sterilisation campaign 9-19 November and bring some much needed medical supplies. We are thrilled and very grateful!
Victims of animal cruelty receiving treatment
Strays are often hit by cars – sometimes deliberately, sometimes by accident.
This dog was hit by a car, and you see in the video where he fell.
Our volunteer Nona was taking care of him in Dadiani palace where we have the only dog house for street dogs. Yesterday, the stray started to chew his legs and we had to amputate it urgently today. We also castrated and vaccinated him against rabies.
Fighting cancer in the streets
As many of you know, we treat cancer stray patients on a monthly basis. Zero Strays has not got a treatment facility, so we team up with local vets to provide on-street chemotherapy to dogs in dire need of cancer treatment. This dog received a second round of stray chemotherapy treatment done in the street by vet George Tchurgulia, volunteer Nata Sordia.
Medical treatments
The need for medical assistance among Georgian strays is very massive, and we can only cover a fraction of what is really needed. However, we do our best to support surgery and treatment for some of the most injured, vulnerable strays.
Below is a photo of a cockapoo or poodle 💔 We sent it to Emzar’s clinic. The leg was damaged but did not required surgery. It’s female so we neutered her urgently. Volunteer Nona Natchkebia assisted the vet. Nona was then trying to find her parents but sadly no one appeared, meaning she is abandoned. We later had to amputate the tail as it was damaged and causing pain.
Stray dog Max has now had his stray ear tag removed and will no longer have to return to the streets. Max had surgery, arthroplasty and all went well 🚀 after surgery he immediately started walking better!
We sent high-quality, specialized food for Mila to support her bones. Since her bones are weak and she only has three legs, she needs extra help to strengthen them. We also sent special drops and vitamins.
Skin disease treatments
Skin disease is very common among Georgian strays. We sponsor Nexguard Spectra treatments on a regular basis and the result is incredible. Just check this case from Kutaisi.
