Animal protection center «Best friends»
Dear visitors!
We appeal to everybody, who cares about the faith of stray animals.
Our names are Rimma and Vitally Kirillov and we are the owners of the animal protection center «Best friends» in Kaliningrad city (Russian Federation – Kaliningrad region) – it is the one and only noncommercial center in this city. We receive no funding from government or municipality and rely only on our own funds and donations. Our center provides care for more than 100 cats and dogs.
The address of our four-storey house, located in 15 minutes walking distance from the center of Kaliningrad, is kept in secret. Although even such precautions do not prevent us from being continually blackmailed: "Take them (animals), or we will kill them!" or "Well, you should take them, one dog or one cat more, wouldn’t make any difference to you." So each year there are more and more animals we have to take care of, we simply can not refuse. Initially, we did not even planned to have a shelter for homeless animals, it just happened. We had a few animals, than people from all over the city started to call us asking to save a cat or a dog, so we did. And as a result our home is now an animal protection shelter.
“Officially” shelter, as a recognized institution, does not even exist. There is a 4-storey house, 100 animals that live there and just 2 people who are taking care of them, at their own expense. There is no veterinarian or any personnel at all, but there is permanent shortage of food and medical supplies.
We accept a lot of dogs and cats but only few of them are adopted. Some dogs are returned back because they are not trained to obey. In some cases – we can not even give away our pets for adoption. Not all people are qualified to be pet’s owners. Some just want to put a dog on a chain, they do not know how to approach and treat it properly. Animals that live in shelter are special; for the most part they were mistreated by people, so they are cautious and trust only to us. Obviously these animals should be treated with particular patience and care.
People are trying to help, they bring pet’s food, porridge, bread, whatever they can - yesterday our animals had a “holiday dinner” – we received several bags of biscuits and boxes of cheese. Dogs always want to eat, they are tense and excited, only in the late afternoon they calm down when the entire daily ration had been consumed and they probably realize that there is nothing else to expect for today.
About local government and our goals
Municipal authorities don’t support our attempts to build the animal shelter, instead they created their own municipal service, called the “Animal protection service”, which primary activity is shooting dogs and cats on the city’s streets, often in front of kids who have to watch the pain and suffering of dying animals. To get rid of killed animals, municipal authorities invested in building special crematorium, which, in order to be profitable, produce fertilizer from animal’s remains.
For 70 years the only solution to control stray animals population, implemented by our government, was to shoot them on the streets. But there is other solution and there is no need to reinvent the wheel - in many countries population of stray animals is controlled by sterilization. And we can easily implement the same solution here – Kaliningrad is a compact, small and closed area, which is easy to monitor. In just a few years we could significantly reduce the population of homeless animals by sterilizing them, if only the municipal and state government had will to do it.
We are not advocating for putting more and more animals into the shelters, which do not even exist in Kaliningrad anyway, we are advocating for reducing population of stray animals in a humane way – by sterilization. It is the main goal of our animal protection center.
Currently we are trying to conduct negotiations with local government. A few months ago we wrote the comprehensive plan, covering all aspects of controlling and decreasing the stray animals populations in Kaliningrad city.
We are trying to get the financial help from the government to implement this plan.
So far we received no answer.
Our plans and projects
- Our plan includes several items:
building a large enough shelter for stray animals outside Kaliningrad, in the proximity of another, much smaller city - Gurievsk.
Local administration promised to provide us with funds for purchasing land, but after we have waited for a few years, it became clear that it is not going to happen, so we spent our own money and bought the land.
2 housing modules for animals have been already built. Each module is 100 square meters and can host approximately 150 animals. The modules are not insulated yet; they are covered with the metal sheets on the outside. Enclosures for walking animals will be built next to each module.
Modules will be tiled inside; floors will be covered with a layer of sand and sawdust to make it easier to clean after animals. Cleaning our house, where animals live now, is very hard, time consuming and exhausting work, which takes most of the day. Heating will be provided by special infrared lamps and insulated floors.
Within a module we are planning to build each animal its own compartment with its own bowl for food and water - this is crucial for animals, they are constantly nervous about the lack of food, each time they are trying to eat more because they are not sure that tomorrow they will have something to fill there’s empty stomachs.
New shelter is located outside of the city limits - in the middle of the field with a lot of open space and clean air. We planned to move all animals to a new shelter in the spring of 2010. But now it’s clear that relocation will be delayed.
So far we built only two modules, plans are to build much more, but unfortunately we are lacking funds to do it. There is also an issue with electricity - the local power plant doesn’t provide enough power, not enough even for one small house, not to mention the whole shelter.
We need funds to increase supply of electricity, so far, the problem remains unresolved.
We also need building materials: ceramic tiles, metal mesh, gravel, sand, cement, tile adhesive, etc.
- Our plans for shelter include not only construction of modules, but also construction of veterinary hospital. We receive a lot of offers from local veterinarians to work with us, but they want to be paid. If we hire veterinarian, than we will leave almost half of our dogs and cats without the food. So the choice is either to hire veterinarian or to feed the animals. We choose to feed the animals. We would like to build clinic very much If only we could find any sponsors or volunteers (ideally veterinarians) who could contribute their time.
- Another idea is to build a “hostel” for animals, which could provide some funds to finance the shelter. We often receive calls from people who are looking for a place where they can temporary leave theirs pets. Currently we have no choice but to refuse them. We have to explain that we simply do not have enough time to monitor their pets since we have 100 of our own to take care of. If we can build the “hostel” and charge pet owners for service, than we can hire people, who will monitor, feed and wash the animals. Income generated by hostel could provide at least some source of income and self-sufficiency for shelter. Our own funds are simply not enough to build everything.
Nowadays
Today, the situation in shelter is critical. Some dogs have left – they are looking for better conditions. A lot of pets are sick, especially cats (local veterinarians don’t have experience and skills to treat them properly, not to mention that proper treatment is very expensive).
Animals are still living in house not in the modules (they are not finished yet). Living in cramped conditions makes animals nervous and cause aggression.
The most critical problem is an unstoppable dog’s barking, which makes ours neighbors life unbearable.
We are asking for any help. We cannot rely on local government’s financial help – it’s a very long and difficult bureaucratic procedure – we don’t have that much time. We have to relocate all our animals into the new shelter outside of the city. We hope for any help from people, who care about animals.
Our contacts:
Russia, Kaliningrad region - Kaliningrad city
e-mail:
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phone: +7 952 05 76 336
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