A VISIT to the Sirius Dog Sanctuary in Moni is a shocking experience. Volunteers at the sanctuary are taking care of over 100 rescued dogs in a space without electricity or running water.
Despite the many obstacles, the sanctuary’s achievements are impressive: saving dogs from death row, spaying and looking after hundreds of dogs, setting up a successful online adoption service and operating a foster home and volunteer network.
“Upon arrival to the sanctuary, dogs are spayed and receive any medical care they need. We give them everything we can. It’s not the best place for them, but at least here they can be healthy, fed and looked after until they find a good home,” said Christine Barton, volunteer shelter Secretary.
The large number of dogs at the shelter is also a bad reflection of a society where dog abuse and abandonment is commonplace.
“We had many poor little things come in which were badly abused and injured. We also picked up dogs that were very sick. Obviously people knew they were sick and dumped them.
“We found one dog in a terrible state, riddled with cancer. That’s not something that happens overnight, but her owners didn’t care to take her to the vet and just left her to suffer. They dumped her because she had cancer. We had to put her down, as it was too late to do anything else,” Barton added.
Sirius, however, is the only dog shelter in Cyprus that does not put down dogs, regardless of how many dogs are at the shelter, or how long the dog has been staying there.
Dogs are put down only if they are so sick that they will not benefit from treatment, or in rare cases when dogs are extremely vicious and violent. Sirius volunteers even go a step further and save the lives of ‘death row’ dogs from the municipal shelter in Polemidia, where dogs are put down if they don’t get adopted within two weeks of their arrival.
Due to the many and shocking cases of abuse of hunting dogs by their masters, who often torture and abandon their pets if they think that they are not fit for hunting, the sanctuary volunteers do not usually give out dogs to hunters.
“We want to re-home dogs to good, loving families. We don’t want them in cages or chained – we are looking for quality of life for these animals, which they haven’t had until now,” Barton said.
Through the sanctuary’s online adoption process, a large number of dogs have been adopted by families in Germany. As the volunteers explained, Germans seem to be particularly fond of the ‘Cyprus poodle’.
“The Germans love our poodles. These little dogs fly off the shelves, they are beautiful animals. But we just have too many dogs here.”
The sanctuary also operates a foster-parent service, whereby families can look after a dog for a short period of time, after an operation or before a relocation.
“We have six or seven foster families, but we need many more. We try to give foster families the adult dogs for three weeks before they are sent to Germany so that they get cleaned and groomed, before going off to the families,” she said.
Despite the sanctuary’s excellent work, the shelter is now under threat of closing down, due to a legal battle with the local authority, which claims that the site is not licensed to keep so many animals.
The present site, an abandoned factory, belongs to a Limassol businessman who allows the sanctuary to operate there. The local authority, however, is taking the businessman to court on the grounds that he does not have a license to have so many animals on site.
The paradox, however, lies in the fact that the dog sanctuary has been receiving funding from the state, is a registered association under the name ‘Association for the Protection of Animals of Limassol District’, and is in the process of acquiring formal charitable organisation status.
“The state vet knew of our existence from the outset, and we’ve been getting a grant. So how can we be illegal?” she asked.
If Sirius were to close down, not only would that deprive dogs from the hope of finding a loving home, it would mean that over 100 dogs would end up in the street, as there is simply no other place to take them.
“The state plans to build a supershelter in Armenohori. The land is there but nothing has been done. Until that is built, we cannot leave. We are here doing what the state should have been doing in the first place. Why would they want to kick us out?”
At present, the sanctuary is in need of volunteers to help in its operation, or even to take a dog for a walk, foster families to look after a dog, fundraisers, and loving homes for shelter dogs.
n For more information call 97780779 or visit www.siriusdogsanctuary.com
