Some members of our team started a project with stray dogs from the desert in the middle of August, in collaboration with the BlueMoon Animal Center in Hurghada and Susy Utzinger Stiftung für Tierschutz, a Swiss NGO supporting the street dogs treatment and castration.
BlueMoon is doing a great action by coming down to Marsa Alam few days every month to cure and castrate stray dogs and cats for free. Our aim is to collect every month stray dogs (and some cats) from the desert to get them castrated, tagged and vaccinated against rabies by BlueMoon. If animals get injuries that require heavier treatment or surgery, we bring them to the clinic in Hurghada.
These animals are really shy as they are not used to have human contact except, unfortunately, for violence, so it takes us weeks to get close enough to catch them (special thanks to Manu Jerry who is here to help!). In order to gain their trust, we come to see them everyday, give them some attention and play with them. We provide food for the ones castrated or in urgent help, or we feed them to catch them. Step by step they come closer and closer and we now reached a point where they come running to us when we arrive. So rewarding!
Of course we also work on education of the staff, from RSDS and also from the hotels next door by explaining them what we are doing and why, in order to raise awareness.
So far we brought 3 animals to Hurghada for different issues: hernia, broken leg and injured leg. In August we got 10 dogs and 1 cat castrated, in October we got 3 dogs castrated and so far for November we got 1 dog castrated. For December, we estimate that 4-5 will be tame enough to be castrated, if we don't find more in the mean time.
If you wish to get involved when you visit us or want to have news of this project, feel free to write to us! And if you can bring some stuffs for them, we urgently need some tick collars. Thank you for them!
