Box 48, dog's name Nana. Years in the shelter: seven. Nana is one of over 200 dogs, according to volunteers at the Podgorica shelter for abandoned animals at Vreli Ribničke, who were there last week. Nana also has the longest tenure at the shelter.
In order to make it easier for Nana and the other dogs there to find their way to permanent housing, the Actors' Association visited the shelter today, and according to Petar Novaković, they are planning other activities in the coming period.
The reason for today's visit, he says, is a beautiful day, to visit the dogs, and possibly adopt some of them.
"The reason we invited you (the media) is to show others that this is a completely normal move that anyone can make, so that others can come, visit the dogs, feed them, walk them, and generally normalize the attitude towards street dogs. A lot of dogs have been poisoned on the streets recently, people generally treat them badly. In the villages, we keep them chained... I think we need to make these small steps of awareness and normalization, so that it is accepted in society," he said.
Novaković, like most of his colleagues, is visiting the shelter for the first time.
"It's my first time. My heart hurts, but it's also beautiful. I see that the dogs are also glad that we came to visit them," said Novaković.
Today's visit, he said, is just the beginning. In order to help find homes for the dogs from the shelter, the Actors' Association is considering several options.
"Maybe we could take photos of those dogs, maybe one of us could sponsor a dog to be adopted, maybe we could organize weekly or monthly visits for people from different spheres of public life, so that people can come together as a collective, come and support the action," Novaković said.
For volunteers at the shelter, Ratka Tanjević and Marta Darmanović, any similar initiative, as they said, is welcome.
Ratka has been volunteering for over 15 years, and for some time now she has been working four hours a day at the shelter.
"I go around all the dogs, see who needs help, to put them on a program, if blood needs to be taken, what the results are, to see if the dog is okay... I make a list every day for the vets. After that, I give therapy... some dogs receive therapy for 28 days," she lists some of her daily duties.
And that's not all:
"I let the dogs out into the open, watch how they get along, and if some don't get along with each other, I move them around. I also socialize the dogs, and if one is aggressive, I work with it for a long time... I try to tame some aggressive dogs, to prove that they are not aggressive, but that they had some trigger, some great stress, that brought them to that state," she explains.
In addition to taking care of the dogs at the shelter, Ratka and her friend feed 96 other dogs at several locations in Podgorica.
"Behind 'Okova', on Željeznička, I have been feeding and taking these dogs to the vet for seven years, there are about 40, 50 of them...".
She is not optimistic when asked if and how much has changed in the last 15 years, how much she volunteers and cares for abandoned dogs:
"Maybe things have gotten a little better now, but it's very little, I'm afraid it will never be right here, because people have no awareness of animals, no empathy. When they see a dog, they attack it, they frown, even though that dog doesn't touch them. Here, a person won't feed a dog, even if they see it dying, they won't turn around."
There is no better comment when it comes to dog owners:
"They buy dogs and after a while throw them out onto the street," he says, hoping that amendments to the Animal Welfare Protection Act and decisions on keeping animals will bring some changes to Podgorica.
When it comes to foster care, Tanjević said that the situation is bad:
"We adopted ten, there are 110 more on the streets. A lot of that was slowed down by the appearance of parvovirus in the shelter, everything that was adopted at that time was adopted through the non-governmental organization 'Hand-Pain', thanks to that NGO, Marta Darmanović, through our personal profiles. I hope it will go better now that the shelter is open again," she said.
The shelter in Podgorica was closed to visitors for several months due to the outbreak of parvovirus. A few days ago, "Čistoća", which runs the shelter, announced that visits were again allowed every working day from 15.00:16.00 PM to XNUMX:XNUMX PM.
"And so that as many dogs from the shelter as possible can find new owners, the deadlines for applying for adoption are Thursdays from 15.00:18.00 PM to 10.00:12.00 PM and Saturdays from XNUMX:XNUMX AM to XNUMX:XNUMX PM," said "Čistoća".
Tanjević also said that "Čistoća" is creating a website, through which interested parties will be further informed about the adoption procedure, as well as about the dogs in the shelter who are candidates for adoption.
"The page will be run by Marta Darmanović, I really hope it will be good," she said.
Bonus video:
