Armenia Animal Shelter

Living a Dog’s Life in Armenia “Save the puppies” Shelter Run by Samaritan Nune Mehrabyans, Sona Krikorian.
Nune Mehrabyans rushed toward us once we waited for her regarding place of Toumanian & Nalbandian Avenues. She’s a small lady. On better inspection one might worry to break the woman if they accept this lady too strongly – but accept this lady, you must.
She attempts to achieve the impossible here in Armenia, and does it with a metallic resilience that belies the woman appearance: Nune is regarded as two ladies whom operate the actual only real dog shelter in Armenia.
In Armenia, puppy ownership is in fact perhaps not part of the standard experience. The discrepancy in income is needed here: most people cannot manage to buy the puppies they see at Vernisage (a road market) as the top 4percent in income in Armenia (usually considered oligarchs) buy their particular puppies for thousands of dollars, importing them from their nations of origin (Germany, Russia, etc.)
These reward puppies are held in compounds and used primarily for dog fights, and/or activity of the owners. No matter personal standing, the Armenian public features a myth that dogs naturally carry diseases that can transfer to humans, and are prone to violent attacks against their particular owners, or other individual.
The idea of keeping your dog within your residence, or as a companion is non-existent, aside from the idea of adopting one from your pet dog protection.
My communication with Nune went back simply to the midst of this past summer time, whenever I experienced inhumane therapy and irresponsible reproduction of puppies within my neighborhood. My colleague, Vika, labeled as this lady, exclaiming “if anyone can allow you to, it is she.”
Within several hours, Nune is at my house, and when I recounted the problem of the puppies during my neighbor hood, this delicate ladies, which we dreaded would break from the woman visceral a reaction to my stories, summoned up some sort of courage and marched right down to my neighbor, pamphlet in hand, demanded to look at premises and…the sleep is record.
$166 daily to feed 220 dogs
Armed with a professional photographer and videographer, we found Nune on the street as she visited satisfy a taxi. Everyone piled in to the vehicle and started on our course. First we stopped at a street lined with outside animal meat markets.
Here we found one of the biggest prices of puppy housing. Being feed the 220 puppies at Save the puppies shelter, she has to buy over 70 kilograms of meat every single day, at 800AMD/kilogram ($2USD) of animal meat.
She comes with to purchase around 5, 000AMD ($14USD) of rice and 2, 000AMD ($5USD) of parsley for the dogs: it will help using dogs’ digestion, and she claims with a faint look “it takes the smell of meat from their food; they appreciate it.”
An additional visit the pharmacy where she goes into purchase pro-biotics the dogs that need it, another 1, 000AMD ($2.5USD), and we’re on our method. Complete price to give the dogs for the day: close to 60, 000 drams ($166USD).
Our taxi holds united states out of the town and into a location that when housed factories. We pull-up to a closed gate as they are welcomed by a stray dog sitting beyond your ingredient. Nune points out that she just doesn’t have a spot to help keep this dog, so he simply hangs around outside and she feeds him and protects him whenever she can.
He’s a sweet puppy and greets united states fearfully. We animal him, and it seems he’s uncertain what to do because of the attention. We move past him and are also welcomed by a small grouping of the sweetest, friendliest dogs with, unfortuitously. already been terribly addressed eventually before these people were conserved by protect the creatures.
Despite being scrawny and having had some sad, harsh moments in their resides, these puppies have actually shifted from their past and they are only very happy to see Nune, and so are interested in learning these newcomers.
Dog housing housed in previous factory
The location of puppy refuge is a former sewing factory. A kind-hearted local, disrupted by the plight of pets in Armenia, donated it to Save the Animals.
It really is currently residence to 220 dogs, and is operate by a staff of six: two people to feed and operate the dogs, (these are generally fed and exercised in shifts in order to avoid chaos); two different people to completely clean up after the dogs; a shield (which was required) and a supervisor.
The raw animal meat, rice and parsley are brought in and taken into the factory, although we hold off outside with Nune, one of her feeders, while the dogs.
Outdoors, within the hot summertime of Armenia, among puppies inside their runs, puppies outside, dogs sitting all around us, nudging our hands to dog their particular faces and seeing united states fearfully from afar, Nune tells us the story associated with plight of dogs in Armenia.
There are many programs, worldwide and regional in Armenia that try to help the puppy scenario in Armenia, she states, as she picks fleas away from among her puppies. We see the Armenian federal government budgets 80 million AMD ($222, 000) on animal sterilization programs; but rather of spaying and neutering, they merely look for stray puppies on the road and shoot them. In addition to being inhumane, this does not assist the increasing problem in Armenia of stay puppies multiplying.
There were attempts by intercontinental companies to greatly help promote the notion of proactively nearing the issue of over-population of animals instead of responding to it with killings.
The first meeting on Stray creatures in the Caucasus’ occured in Yerevan earlier this July (2009). The summit had been arranged as collaboration between your Pro Paws Charity, the Acopian Center for Environment (ACE), the building blocks for Preservation of Wildlife and Cultural Assets (FPWC) and business for safety and Co-operation in European countries (OSCE) in partnership with WSPA, Dogs Trust, WVC, an such like.
a regional representative of Yerevan’s Municipal Council ended up being available, and just commented “The issue of puppy welfare won't have a precedent in Armenia, and will take a long time is developed with regards to plan.”
Armenia does not have cohesive policy on strays
The greatest concern for stray puppies in Armenia today is the fact that there isn’t a cohesive policy. Actually, there's absolutely no real plan.
Anyone can phone and lodge a complaint against an area puppy, often from fear – “what if dog bites united states?”, or away from annoyance – “the puppy barks too much.” The common reaction is actually for the police to capture the dogs on sight.
However, if the typical training, and policy, of catching these puppies, spaying/neutering, after which re-releasing these dogs had been used, not merely would the situation of stray dogs be drastically decreased, the issue of territorial prominence because of the stray puppies is addressed.
After the introduction of veterinarians doing work in personal training (in the past two years) the practice of spaying and neutering dogs has been considerably impacted: the marketplace value of a spay/neuter surgery in Yerevan is 20, 000AMD ($55) (for puppy housing, maybe not for private proprietors). For a country this is certainly barely clawing its method into the realm of created nations, it seems sensible the cost of such a project appears to be daunting, except facing a currently present federal spending plan that is supposedly aimed toward addressing this precise problem.
In the middle petting the puppies which come to the lady, Nune explains to united states the reasoning for the spay/neuter promotion in Armenia. “If they'd merely used thru with the plan of action, we'dn’t take this mess. Two dogs give birth to about 5 brand new puppies those puppies develop and present beginning for their very own litters…the population expands exponentially.”
Later within our discussion, we asked Nune “what you may not require, away from economic support?”