Phone calls received from the public
83,750
Rescue trips made
4,350
Rescued animals
2, 536 dogs, 2,976 cats, 5 horses, 18 donkeys, 6 rabbits, 22 birds, 1 guinea pig, 1 tortoise, 1 goat, 1 parrot, 3 ducks, 16 hamsters
Animals neutered/spayed
Cats 575 paid by owners
Dogs 365 paid by owners
Cats 985 paid by Paphiakos
Dogs 420 paid by Paphiakos
Animals re homed
Dogs 228
Cats 84.
Cats and dogs in the shelter requiring medical treatment
2,850
Number of lost animals reclaimed
110.
Dead animals collected from motorway, streets, villages, and towns
175
Statistics from Paphiakos Animal Welfare for the year 2007
WE MAY all dream of a utopia where no animal will want for a good home, where euthanasia is not an option for a healthy animal – but just now this remains only a dream.
Currently the Paphiakos Animal Welfare charity based in Paphos is caring for over 400 dogs, around 100 puppies, plus cats, donkeys and horses. They are animals that have been rescued from cruel and inhumane conditions, have been abandoned, or brought in by owners who can no longer care for them.
This year Christine Panayiotou, who runs the charity, will expect to receive on average over 7,000 animals. The absolute minimum to just feed a dog is 2 euros per day. Add the space needed for housing, basic medical care, regular check ups, vaccinations and flea and tick control measures – to say nothing of the salaries of the essential full time staff – and you are looking at a total care bill come year end of more than 2.5 million euros
Christine is the first to admit that her dream would be to keep every animal alive and well cared for, to find them all good homes. An even happier dream would be to live in a society where there was no need for an animal shelter, so her skills and dedication could then be redundant.
But however much it hurts, Christine is a realist. Ideal worlds do not exist, and as a fierce long-term campaigner for animal rights, she has to have recourse to euthanasia, a policy that allows the vast majority of animals to survive and be helped to a new and better life.
Animal euthanasia remains the subject of heated debate in the world of animal welfare. But the fact remains that a ‘no kill’ shelter cannot help those animals rejected at the door because there is no space for them. Tremendous pressure is put upon a shelter with such a policy, and the result of trying to provide refuge for all the homeless animals is often undue suffering.
Animals that may have been adoptable when first housed at the shelter soon become unadoptable, having to survive in a crowded environment that wears on their temperament and can even make them sick.
The brutal reality is that the flow of incoming animals always exceeds that of the outgoing animals. So how humane is a shelter that keeps marginally adoptable animals in a crowded kennel situation with animals going crazy and spreading disease?
But just as inhumane euthanasia methods and high euthanasia rates at one shelter can be twisted to cast a negative pall on all shelters, so poor animal care standards and deceptive slogans at some ‘no kills’ have in turn cast a poor light on compassionate and responsible ‘no kill’ organisations.
Humane euthanasia is a fact that has to be faced so we can help the needy desperate animals that pad through the portals of any animal shelter.
It isn’t a policy that Christine Panayiotou follows lightly but her definition of animal welfare is clear.
“People tend to forget what welfare means. It certainly doesn’t mean filling shelters with dogs that are un-homable and animals that cannot be taken out for walks etc and then fall into a spiral of depression and aggression. I have seen conditions where animals are kept alive in overcrowded conditions, where they lie in their own excrement and have little or no human contact so they become depressed, sick and aggressive,” she said.
“The welfare of animals has to be seen in many different areas, community service, birth control, and family protection and to help eliminate suffering in animals. The animal must always come first and that means we do have to put to sleep those which will not be able to be re homed for any number of reasons.”
Christine remembers with terrible clarity the very first dog she had to put to sleep in 1984. She says it doesn’t get easier but it has to be done to allow other healthy re-home able dogs to have a life.
“I never say goodbye to an animal without first giving it a few weeks in our care, after all there is always the hope that a fighter or biter may change its pattern of behaviour or a sick animal will recover. It’s sad, but I have to have a long-term view and be constantly aware of the negative cause and effect of not having a mercy killing policy,” she said.
Money, education, strict rules and regulations on the ownership of animals, trying to persuade owners that sterilisation/neutering is the only way to stop the huge influx of animals that find their way to the shelters, the banning of poisons and compulsory micro chipping are all vital elements that together would change the need for such a policy.
Moral outrage at the demise of dogs at the hands of animal shelters is based on ignorance of the whole facts. Animal shelters that stand by their policy of selective euthanasia face plenty of abuse, yet we as a community do little to help the situation with stray dogs.
In my own area of Konia, there are six dogs which roam the streets on a daily nightly basis. They are owned by Cypriots who feed them, and seem to care for their company, but, do not keep them safe within the confines of their homes.
One dog last month dashed across the road and collided with a motorcyclist. Both were badly injured, yet the owner of the dog denied any responsibility saying “that’s what dogs do”. Until we have a total mind set change about what an animal’s role is within a household and the responsibilities that go with ownership, not only will dogs continue to die, so also will drivers and passengers in the cars and motorbikes that accidentally encounter one.
