When Shannon Mathie, from Hillcrest, visited Malongane (15km from the Kosi Bay border) about a year ago, she was unable to ignore the sight of stray dogs wandering along the roads and through the bush.
She came across a dog that had been caught in a snare – he was in a lot of pain, terrified and starving, and the vet who saw him estimated that he must have been trapped for around ten days. Shannon and her family did their best to look after him, but they had to have him put to sleep. “This left me heartbroken and ready to make a change!” she says.
In an effort to reduce the number of stray dogs in the area, Shannon joined forces with Caron Grant Hean, Mel Glunz (who lives in Mozambique) and Susanne Muller (from Matuba) to set up Protect Ponta.
The women aim to visit Mozambique at least once every two months to raise awareness among locals, treat dogs for rabies and sterilise as many dogs as possible to reduce the cycle of stray animals. Human deaths as a result of rabies are still occurring, but vaccinating all dogs will help reduce these numbers.
This weekend, Protect Ponta treated 30 dogs, with the help of a team of four volunteer vets, including Anna Flavia, and nurses from Maputo. They currently operate from the Community Centre in Malongane, which they have improved with help from Dulux in Hillcrest. However, there is a lot more work that needs to be done.
The dogs are often brought to the clinic in a terrible state – under-fed and tied with rope. The charity has employed a local craftsman to make leads and collars, which are used to identify dogs that have been treated. Strays are marked with a wooden numbered disk, which enables the women to keep track of their treatment and assures holidaymakers that they have been vaccinated, etc.
An area of concern is the local dump site, where there are a large number of animals that are not used to human contact. The women are hoping to get together a team of vets to dart and treat these animals. However, they are desperately in need of dog food, bowls and financial donations to establish a permanent base for their work.
“The situation is really heartbreaking,” says Shannon, “and sometimes we need to take desperate measures. The reward, however, is seeing animals we treated a year ago and how far they have come!”
If you would like to help, please contact us and we will put you in touch with Protect Ponta.
5 Comments
Well done to the ladies 🙂
WOW! You guys really do a stirling job in helping Village pets in southern Moz! It was refreshing to encounter healthy, happy dogs in and around Ponta do Ouro and Ponta Malongane during our holidays, free of obvious diseases! That gave me a warm fuzzy feeling. Thank you for helping make our holiday memories, happy ones…
You doing great work everybody so nice to see more caring people out there.
Hi, i am on my way back from Ponta after spending a lovely 2 weeks. A stay made so much more enjoyable by the pack of dogs on the beach. All of them looked healthy and were used to much attetion given by most of the holiday makers. And we were visited every night by a beautiful young labrador we promptly named Rufus. They know how to steal the hearts of the holiday makers. Next time i will have a big bag of dogfood included in my foodrations. Well done to you and the team. I am very involved with Spca work in the nortern cape and now how difficult it is to loose a dog because nobody cared. Sonja grobler
Hi
I had the pleasure of the dogs company last year July and I’m heading back to Malangane mid Feb to visit them and do some fishing. I would like to bring some food. Any contacts would help.
Thanks Gary.