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St. Vincent
From the very beginnings the Association for Aid and Support of the Creole Dogs has had a concept that combines spay neuter and humane education for the utmost effectiveness of animal welfare work and a real improvement of the quality of animals‘ life. Up to now we could always realize only aspects of this concept in our projects; spay neuter in the Dominican Republic and on other islands and a school project on Barbados. On St. Vincent this is different!
For the VSPCA – Vincentian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals the combination of spay neuter and humane education is a matter of course! We have the same goal concerning sustainable animal welfare that will lead to lasting changes. 2025 the Association for Aid and Support of the Creole Dogs celebrates its twentieth anniversary; a great occasion to partner up with the VSPCA! Our cooperation shall start already this summer with a summer camp for the children of St. Vincent in August; for children who won’t travel, whose parents will have to work also during school holidays and who will be happy knowing their kids are taken care off and are having a lot of fun.
The president goes herself into the schools and teaches. All products and items future pet keepers should know she brings along.
During her lessons she focuses on the 5 freedoms every animal should be guaranteed: Freedom from hunger and thirst, freedom from discomfort, freedom from pain, injury and disease, freedom to express normal behaviour and freedom from fear and distress.
And of course the importance of spay neuter is being explained, not only to control overpopulation but also its effects on animal behaviour.
The children are colouring a drawing showing a spayed/neutered cat which sits contently on its owner’s lap instead of roaming around getting into danger. The little toy dog is a very important item in each lesson. The children practice with it how to handle dogs properly later on.
Not even corona could stop Jhanice! When the schools closed she just turned the small VSPCA clinic into a classroom and continued teaching.
Jhanice creates them herself. There seems to be no limit to her imaginativeness and creativity.
The VSPCA has no big shelter and can only keep a few dogs, mostly puppies or very young ones and emergencies; a dozen at the most.
The children participate in all tasks concerning the care of the animals…
…although sometimes the children find out that a puppy can be a lot more stubborn than the toy dog.
But with a little practice children and dogs become a great team.
All have arrived back home safe and sound. Not only the children, also the young dogs have learnt something. Leash training is an important part of their education making it easier to find forever homes for them.
After the eruption of vulcano La Soufriere in April 21 the VSPCA helped starving animals all over the island.
Of course the children were participating in this mission.
The dogs knew immediately what these grey plastic pipes were meant for.
In April 24 a spay neuter clinic with American vets was held on St. Vincent.
Dr Kimberly and her team operated in several places on the island.
From 2025 on there will be an annual campaign with Claudia Bretthauer for approximately 300 animals. Volunteers will go to St. Vincent as they do now to Barbados and teach at the schools. But first of all there will be the summer camp in August.
Also during corona there was a summer camp and what looks like baking cookies for Christmas…
The paper bags are coloured and decorated with stickers….
…while the cookies are waiting to be filled into the bags.
Soon the gifts are ready – gifts for the dogs of the summer campers!
The ones left over were sold and made a little bit of money for animal welfare. As hard as Jhanice Nelson tried to keep up teaching during corona restrictions there is a lot of catching up to do. Therefore the focus of this year’s summer camp is on humane education. 4 graduate from the Teachers college will teach groups of 15 – 20 children each, following the school program that is also used on Barbados. A horse owner, Mr. Charles, will come with his 2 horses. So the children get to know big animals, how to deal with them and they will be able to ride on them. And of course there will be any amount of outdoor games and activities for a whole month! In order to realize this we have to raise 1800 €: 50 € for each teacher and week 200 € for transportation 70 € for Mr. Charles 25 € for snacks and drinks per week 250 € for materials to build the summer camp 250 € for outdoor rental games 130 € for VSPCA T-shirts that will be given to the kids. We ask everybody who can spare a few euros for this cause to help us with a donation to: Association for Aid and Support of Creole Dogs Reference St. Vincent Or alternatively use PayPal to donate to the PayPal account gorskiisabel@t-online.de. We hope that our report has shown that an investment into the youth is the most sustainable form of animal welfare! |
