07/25/23 First Dubrovnik Steps Towards Registered Animal Shelter
Animal Friends Croatia praises taking care of abandoned animals in accordance with the law regulations for over 20 years acknowledge
- At www.adopt-zarkovica.eu photographs and information about the dogs in ®arkovica who urgently need a home
All still remember when last Summer Pobjede Association, Shelter Friends from Èakovec and Association Animal Friends Croatia started the project Adopt ®arkovica Dogs in order to take care of more than 260 dogs from the unregistered shelter in ®arkovica. After two decades of dogs suffering on a hill above Dubrovnik, during all kinds of weather disasters and without proper conditions for keeping and caring of them during the next several months a large number of dogs, amongst them first the ones who are ill and injured, are taken for care by associations and are in temporary or permanent living conditions. After an entire year after the project management was taken over by a long-time volunteer Ana Ivelja, this month the councilmen of the city of Dubrovnik have accepted her nomination as a temporary director of the Public Institution of the Shelter for Abandoned Animals in Grabovica. „After the start of works on the future asylum, the establishment of the public institution also followed, which actually means that we are one step from the first registered abandoned animal shelter in Dubrovaèko-Neretvanska County! After completion of the construction follows the registration and working start of the shelter”, Ivelja declares.
She adds that the shelter will be an asylum for the animals abandoned in the city of Dubrovnik but also in all counties that will cooperate with them. „Aside from taking care of the abandoned animals in the shelter, we will continuously conduct programs of castration free-living cats that are truly many in our area. We plan various educations in order to inform our fellow citizens about various themes such as responsible guardianship, the importance of castration, prevention of contagious diseases and similar. As an institution, we will advocate legal sanctioning of all breaching the law, especially the abusers. We look forward to a close cooperation with the veterinary inspection which is also a precondition for specifically proper law enforcement. We have a long road ahead of us but we know that the future is bright.”
One year ago, volunteers from the Osijek Association Pobjede listed all dogs that were found in ®arkovica. Information about them and the photographs are available at www.adopt-zarkovica.eu in Croatian, English and German languages. „From ®arkovica, within the last year, 160 dogs went into their forever home. In shelters in Croatia, there are 23 dogs, while at the same time also 23 are living in the asylum Dioz in Poland. In ®arkovica there are presently 35 dogs seeking a home and a similar number is also in temporary homes and in the care of associations who have taken and enabled them to see what it means to have a home, even if it's a temporary one”, says Ana Ivelja and invites all who have conditions to provide a home to one of the dogs from ®arkovica.
„It is praiseworthy that Dubrovnik has finally started to resolve the problem of taking care of abandoned animals in accordance with the Animal Protection Law and the By-Lay on Obligatory Conditions for Animal Shelters. After 20 years of inadequate care and the non-existence of a shelter for abandoned and unwanted animals, we expect that the registered shelter, with the infrastructure and a sufficient number of employees according to the By-Law, be a positive example also for other local community units. We expect also that the City not to be cheap, but to invest sufficient funds so the shelter will be such to make the citizens of Dubrovnik proud, and the care of the dogs and finding them homes without any objections”, Luka Oman, the Animals Friends Croatia President, pointed out.
He clarified that, aside from establishing the shelter, the city of Dubrovnik must enforce the law-regulated control of microchipping of dogs and visit all the households and, afterward, conduct regular additional controls. Also, it needs to finance the castration of custodial cats and dogs and also educate the citizens who do not castrate and abandon the animals about their legal obligations. The execution of all legal obligations is expected also of all other local community units of Dubrovaèko-neretvanske County.
All who wish to help the dogs from ®arkovica with temporary housing or adoption and share their photographs and stories can find out more about them on the web page www.adopt-zarkovica.eu, as well as on Facebook Adopt Zarkovica Dogs and Instagram AdoptZarkovica.
![Adopt Zarkovica dogs [ 236.43 Kb ]](/data/image_3_16272.jpg "Adopt Zarkovica dogs [ 236.43 Kb ]")
