Our Mission
Changing the lives of abandoned dogs
one dog at a time
K9 Rescue charity run a no-kill, kennel-free sanctuary, rehabilitating traumatized dogs to prepare them for adoption within travelling distance of our base in West Wales.
We also give back to communities in the worst affected regions with stray populations through advice on spay/neuter and community projects aimed towards creating a healthier ecosystem for both humans and animals, with much of our work being with rescuers and animal shelters in Eastern Europe and Ukraine, assisting with food, medical aid, spay/neuter and emergency care, as well as advice and support on the rescue, care and rehoming of abandoned animals. The Animal Rescue community in these countries, is generally made up of young people caring for the stray dogs and cats on the streets in their own area as a community project, often working several jobs to help buy feed, just to try to make a difference to the lives of these innocent forgotten animals.
Through our partnerships and collaborations with these local communities, we support initiatives that promote sustainable development – this includes projects such as reducing stray populations in urban and rural areas, through rescuing and rehoming, together with spaying and neutering to reduce the number of unwanted litters and help control the stray animal population, contributing to a healthier environment.
K9 Rescue are actively advocating for improved animal welfare in Eastern Europe, with an emphasis on bio-security in animal shelters to eradicate disease in the shelter environment, thereby reducing the potential spread of diseases and parasites into the ecosystem and wider community.
2022 saw us move into Emergency Aid and Disaster Relief assistance to the grass roots rescues in Ukraine, supplying food, medical supplies and veterinary aid to the affected communities, both people and animals, as well as emergency evacuations of animals caught up in the conflict. With our dream of creating a Biodiverse Eco-Shelter in Ukraine with the aid of corporate sponsorship, we aim to build an Environmentally Sustainable EU Traces compliant, state-of-the-art, animal shelter, called Freedom Shelters, which we hope to then roll out to other countries in Eastern Europe. With your support, we can create a sustainable future for the unwanted and forgotten animals of Eastern Europe and Ukraine.
Now, in 2024, we aim to focus on sterilization programs, as the numbers of animals being abandoned to the streets, increases, due to most local government spay/neuter initiatives having ceased due to the war, both the street animals and domestic cats and dogs have been allowed to breed unchecked, which has led to a massive rise in numbers of cats and dogs being abandoned to the streets, creating an animal crisis of exponential proportions as well as a public health emergency.
The forgotten dogs of Eastern Europe
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that there are more than 200 million stray dogs worldwide with 50 million of those street dogs estimated in Central and Eastern Europe.
For these forgotten dogs, life on the streets is brutal; dogs are seen as vermin, and with no, or only basic, animal protection laws, anyone can mistreat them without risk of penalty or imprisonment, so dogs are routinely faced with poisoning, beatings and torture as well as struggling to survive in a hostile environment with starvation and disease a reality or freezing to death or falling victim to being run over by a tram or car and sustain horrific injuries. Those that survive, suffer the most devastating post traumatic stress.
Animal Welfare
In many countries with street dog populations, the Governments grant extermination licences to vigilante hunters to cull the dogs, who are paid per dog killed, with the method of culling left to the choice of the individual – our partners have found dogs tortured, poisoned, deliberately starved, hung, shot, axed, stabbed, beaten, raped, set on fire, purposely run over, dragged behind cars, bludgeoned to death, mouths and limbs tied up, mutilated and left to die a slow, agonising death.
This inhumane method of population control is both cruel and ineffective, and divides the community, where animal lovers live in abject horror with what they are powerless to prevent, whilst others just want to see the streets cleared of strays, no matter the cost. Yet studies have shown, that children and young people subjected to witnessing such cruelty as part of daily life, lose their compassion and empathy for others as the cruel scenes they experience negatively impact their senses and they become detached as a result. These children often grow up to develop mental health issues that can have a direct impact on the community. Foreign NGO’s such as K9 Rescue, working towards a more humane approach to stray population control, not only improves the living conditions of the dogs in these countries, it also creates a healthier environmentally sustainable solution for the communities concerned.
