We cannot let the 102 dogs in Zuzana's shelter starve to death!

1. In Serbia, Žužana has almost no kibble left to feed the 102 dogs in her shelter. They could starve to death!

"We have 102 dogs at the shelter. The last kibble delivery was months ago, and that stock has been gone for a while now. After that, we still had to keep filling the bowls: so we bought the food ourselves, bag after bag, with money we didn't have. That's how the debt built up, week after week, and there was nothing I could do about it. Today there's still a bit of kibble at the back of the storeroom, but it's melting away in front of my eyes and I have no way of replacing it.

For the past two weeks, I've been cutting the rations. All of them. I look at how much I should be putting in each bowl, and I take some out. I do it for every single dog, one after the other. It's my way of buying time, of putting off the moment when there's nothing left, but it doesn't create food: it just spreads the hunger out over more days.

In the morning, the first thing I do is go and look at what's left in the storeroom. In the evening I look again, as if the count could have changed. That's become my way of measuring how much time I have before the dogs have nothing at all. The town's annual support still hasn't reached us this year, and I don't have a single euro left to buy even one bag of kibble."

2. The sick and post-operative dogs at the shelter can't recover: without kibble, their treatments will count for nothing.

"These last two weeks have been terrible. The dogs came in one after another, nearly all of them needing the vet straight away: abandoned puppies, a dog with a broken hip, a dog hit by a car. And Pasa, who spent six years chained to a tree, out in the heat, with no shelter and never properly fed. His wounds have healed since then, but he has a heart condition and worms, his blood work is very bad, and we take blood from him every ten days. A dog in that state doesn't recover on half a ration!

That's what terrifies me most right now. When you look at my dogs, you can't see the hunger on them yet, and I hold on to that. But I know exactly why: because I've been cutting rations for two weeks, because I'm stretching what little is left, because we went into debt to buy food. It isn't a win, it's borrowed time, and it won't hold.

For the sick ones, that borrowed time has already run out. A treatment doesn't work on a dog that isn't eating properly: broken bones don't knit, blood work doesn't improve. And it's terribly hot here at the moment. A dog weakened by hunger in these temperatures has nothing left to take it with. What I'm dreading isn't months away, it's in the next few days."

3. Taken in starving, Kori now has failing kidneys and liver: he can't survive on half a ration.

"Kori came to the shelter 8 years ago, thin, underfed, and with a weak heart. We treated him, we fed him properly day after day, and he pulled through. He's spent all those years here, right beside us, and he ended up becoming one of those dogs you don't introduce any more, the one who's simply there, who has watched hundreds of dogs come and go.

Now he's old, and his body is starting to give out: his kidneys and his liver are in bad shape. He gets treatment regularly, we keep a close eye on him, we adjust what we can. But for a dog in his condition, everything comes down to what's in his bowl. That's what wears him down or what eases him, far more than the medication does. I can't give him just anything, and above all I can't give him less.

So when I cut the rations, he's the first one I think about. A young dog can take a few hard weeks, he has something in reserve. Kori doesn't any more... I caught him, I treated him, and I promised him something different. And here I am serving him a bowl that's half empty..."

4. In debt to the vet and to the kibble supplier, Žužana has reached the end of what she can borrow.

"My debt at the vet's is around 1,100 euros, and I haven't managed to pay off a single cent of it since the spring. And it isn't going to stay at that level: with all the dogs that came in these last two weeks, the puppies, the broken hip, the dog hit by a car, the blood tests every ten days, I'm in no position to cover those costs. They just pile up.

And on top of that, we went into debt a second time, for food, because the dogs had to eat one way or another. We also had to repair the old kennels and redo the roofs: I couldn't leave all these dogs under shelters that let the rain in. Every bit of money we found went there.

Neutering isn't covered by the town any more, so that falls on us too. The municipal support still hasn't been paid this year. We live on whatever trickles in, and here in Serbia, very few people have anything to give. I can put off a bill, I've done it before, a bill waits. Kibble doesn't. The dogs eat today, or they don't eat."

5. Žužana isn't asking for money, only kibble so that her dogs don't starve to death.

"I'm 70 years old, and this year I feel it like never before. The shelter has been my whole life for years, I've never once questioned my place here. But my body doesn't keep up the way it used to. This summer, in this heat, the plain daily work has turned into an ordeal: cleaning, carrying the bags, feeding, treating, watching over them. There are evenings when I sit down and can't get straight back up. And it's the same mentally, there's no moment left where I get to breathe.

The nights don't rest me either. When a storm breaks, I know my dogs panic, so I sit in front of the camera screen counting them, watching for the one who's too worked up. And there's another fear that never leaves me: that someone will use the dark to throw a dog over the fence. The dog lands in the middle of all the others, terrified, and mine take him for an intruder. I'm afraid of getting there too late. That isn't an idle worry, it's happened here before.

So why do I keep going? Because I see what these dogs come out of. Pasa spent six years chained up in the full sun, he could barely walk when he arrived. Today he's standing on his own feet, and we're the ones who did that. That's what gets me back on mine. But I can't carry on alone: someone comes to help me now and then, and the only thing I really need today is bowls that are full, morning and evening."

6. By taking action now, you can help Zuzana receive 3000 kilos of kibble.

Animal Webaction has a logistics platform directly in Serbia, which enables us to intervene quickly and deliver kibble.

7. Campaigns launched on Animal Webaction often fail...

When a campaign fails, Animal Webaction cannot deliver the products. The beneficiary doesn't receive anything and the buyers are refunded. 

8. In Serbia, street dogs are hunted by the state and ignored by the population, volunteers like Zuzana are their only hope.

If you know of a foundation or NGO that could help Zuzana, please invite them to contact us so that we can put them in touch.

If you represent an animal welfare foundation or NGO, please help Zuzana's dogs, contact us and we will put you in touch!

If you would like to drop by Pongo's shelter to help Zuzana or if you would like to send her kibbles or a check directly, contact Zuzana via Facebook (note: direct help is your own responsibility).

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