Rundu pet rescue centre runs on care and little else

HOW much is a dog’s life worth? If it’s a purebred, and living in a well-off area of our country, chances are that it’s worth a lot: but if it’s a stray mutt roaming the streets of Rundu looking for morsels of food, its life does not seem to mean much.

But a Rundu woman, Esmeralda Queiroz, disagrees: for the past six years, she has taken care of the stray cats and dogs in this small hard-scrabble border town, all out of her own pocket. “No one was doing anything about these animals except throwing stones at them when they up-ended a dust-bin.But they did not ask to come into the world, and often they are just dogs that the owners do not take care of,” Queiroz said in an interview.”I could not just stand by and let them suffer.”Queiroz’s rehabilitation programme for Rundu’s stray cats and dogs soon became a major success: her husband, who owns Rundu Steel Construction, built modern kennels for the animals for free, while she and her relatives and friends dipped into their own pockets to buy food, bowls and blankets.From there, Queiroz’s modest undertaking has grown into a full-blown animal welfare centre.”We are now getting animals from all over the area, which essentially runs from Nkurenkuru in the west to Bagani, nearly 400 kilometres away in the east,” she said.However, most of the animals that find their way to the Queiroz animal shelter come from the immediate vicinity of Rundu: stray dogs abandoned by their owners when feeding them and taking care of them becomes too much of a financial burden.Together with her daughter Tanya and friends Anja and Eliza Golden, the Queirozes have become a private animal hospital as well.The local State veterinarian, Dr Thomas Shuro, has also become involved in dealing with the animals’ problems, as they often need medical care: open sores, broken bones from stones thrown by cruel children – every conceivable disease that animals in a semi-tropical climate are prone to, said Queiroz.The costs of running such an operation have, however, been mounting rapidly: while donations from friends were barely adequate a few months ago, the Rundu animal shelter now faced a crisis of both capacity and need, she said.”We urgently need to expand our facilities, we need more food, blankets and medicine and we would really like to buy a vehicle to enable us to go out to the rural areas and collect animals that we otherwise will never be able to help,” said Queiroz.Queiroz has now appealed to Rundu residents to use the Rundu animal shelter to house their pets when they go on holiday, and she has invited other people to become members of her small animal protection society for a modest monthly fee of N$75 a month.”If people do not want to make a permanent commitment, we would also be very happy just to receive one-off donations; we need every little bit of help we can get,” she said.People interested in making donations can do so by direct deposits into the account, held under the name of Rundu SPCA at First National Bank, account number 6211 094 9130.”People can be sure that whatever they are giving to us will go to those animals that need it the most because most of the strays originate from homes where people are often too poor to feed even themselves, much less an unwanted pet,” Queiroz said.* John Grobler is a freelance journalist; 081 240 1587″No one was doing anything about these animals except throwing stones at them when they up-ended a dust-bin.But they did not ask to come into the world, and often they are just dogs that the owners do not take care of,” Queiroz said in an interview.”I could not just stand by and let them suffer.”Queiroz’s rehabilitation programme for Rundu’s stray cats and dogs soon became a major success: her husband, who owns Rundu Steel Construction, built modern kennels for the animals for free, while she and her relatives and friends dipped into their own pockets to buy food, bowls and blankets.From there, Queiroz’s modest undertaking has grown into a full-blown animal welfare centre.”We are now getting animals from all over the area, which essentially runs from Nkurenkuru in the west to Bagani, nearly 400 kilometres away in the east,” she said.However, most of the animals that find their way to the Queiroz animal shelter come from the immediate vicinity of Rundu: stray dogs abandoned by their owners when feeding them and taking care of them becomes too much of a financial burden.Together with her daughter Tanya and friends Anja and Eliza Golden, the Queirozes have become a private animal hospital as well.The local State veterinarian, Dr Thomas Shuro, has also become involved in dealing with the animals’ problems, as they often need medical care: open sores, broken bones from stones thrown by cruel children – every conceivable disease that animals in a semi-tropical climate are prone to, said Queiroz.The costs of running such an operation have, however, been mounting rapidly: while donations from friends were barely adequate a few months ago, the Rundu animal shelter now faced a crisis of both capacity and need, she said.”We urgently need to expand our facilities, we need more food, blankets and medicine and we would really like to buy a vehicle to enable us to go out to the rural areas and collect animals that we otherwise will never be able to help,” said Queiroz.Queiroz has now appealed to Rundu residents to use the Rundu animal shelter to house their pets when they go on holiday, and she has invited other people to become members of her small animal protection society for a modest monthly fee of N$75 a month.”If people do not want to make a permanent commitment, we would also be very happy just to receive one-off donations; we need every little bit of help we can get,” she said.People interested in making donations can do so by direct deposits into the account, held under the name of Rundu SPCA at First National Bank, account number 6211 094 9130.”People can be sure that whatever they are giving to us will go to those animals that need it the most because most of the strays originate from homes where people are often too poor to feed even themselves, much less an unwanted pet,” Queiroz said.* John Grobler is a freelance journalist; 081 240 1587