IFAW South Africa - Helping Cats and Dogs in Happy Valley

This post was written by Christina Pretorius, Programme Manager for IFAW Southern Africa. It is the first of a series that will track the progress of our cat and dog project in Cape Town, South Africa, in the Happy Valley informal settlement.

(8 September 2009) Nearly two weeks ago IFAW’s dog and cat project in Cape Town began taking its mobile clinics to the Happy Valley informal settlement.

It’s hard to imagine what was on the mind of the bureaucrat who named this desperately poor community of shacks and lean-tos built on the sandy Cape Flats about 30 kilometres from Cape Town – as this Happy Valley in no way recalls the glamorous, if dissolute, lives of the wealthy aristocrats and adventurers of Kenya’s renowned Happy Valley set of the 20’s and 30’s.

But Happy Valley it is, and there for all to see emblazoned on a sign sponsored by that very famous fizzy drink brand.

In our first two visits to the settlement 35 dogs and cats were removed for sterilization and then returned home – as I write this more than 80 dogs and cats have received this vital surgery that IFAW’s project provides.

From kick-off it struck me that to follow our work in Happy Valley in the weeks to come would be an ideal topic for a blog. A new area, a new challenge, and a community desperately in need of animal welfare support – and, as importantly, this settlement is representative of many of the places where IFAW’s cat and dog projects work in South Africa; so maybe this blog will provide some insight into the challenges that face us in our work to bring hope and health to pets.

To give some context I did a little research on Happy Valley and informal settlements in general around Cape Town. According to the City of Cape Town we have 223 informal settlements dotted around this metropolitan of four million people. In 2007 it estimated that half million people were living in approximately 109,000 dwellings.

And according to a recent report by the African Centre for Cities (associated with the University of Cape Town), 77 per cent of people in Cape Town’s informal settlements live below the official poverty line – a monthly income of R1,600.00 or about US$160.00. A final shocking statistic from the city is that 40 per cent of people living in informal settlements are unemployed.

There are no statistics to tell us how many dogs live in these communities but Happy Valley has plenty, and lots of cats too.

Similar to most of these communities Happy Valley is blighted by all manner of social ailments from high crime, child and wife abuse, alcohol abuse, teen pregnancy, HIVAids and TB.

The area in which we are working is home to 5,000-odd people, relying on communal taps for (cold) water and portable lavatories for sanitation – those that are able claim their “own” lavatory by securing it with a padlock, so they don’t have to share.

Housing is rudimentary with everyone living in shacks, some smaller and some a little larger, some fairly robust and some very ramshackle. They line the grid of sandy access routes that criss-cross the settlement – it’s this web of well-demarcated paths that will help us in our door-to-door work to identify dogs and cats in need. And, you might ask, how shall we know where to return a sterilized pet? Well, believe it or not, each sandy track has a name and each shack a number, so every pet has a home address!

On our first visit to Happy Valley, our door-to-door investigations turned up no less than four litters of puppies – 30 in all – in four shacks that were side by side! One mommy dog had dug herself a den into the sand under her owner’s shack to protect her pups from the weather; another was nursing her pups on some old sacks under a corrugated iron shelter that offered no protection from the biting wind or from the damp sand below – it is late winter in Cape Town and very wet and cold.

Few people in communities like this will allow their dogs into their shacks – the space is too small, and it’s hard enough to keep the sand out without having a dog bring more in, and not everyone can afford a kennel or realizes that a dog needs a warm, dry bed if they are to sleep outside.

Fortunately the owners of two of the litters were persuaded to let us take the moms and their pups back to clinic. A quick conversion turned our run into a maternity ward with a couple of cozy kennels and once the puppies are weaned, the moms will be sterilized and returned home and loving homes found for their offspring. All are doing well.

On a much less happy note, on Monday we had to rush a female dog that had been stabbed by a drunk back to clinic and into surgery. The dog was hurt after it started to bark at the man who had intruded onto her owner’s shack property. The knife wound had punctured her large intestine in three places.

“Lappies” (the name means “rags” in the local vernacular) was operated on for nearly three hours by our volunteer vet Esme Wilson. It’s still touch and go whether or not Lappies will make it but we are hopeful.

In the meantime, we understand her owner knows the man who stabbed her and he will be encouraged to lay a charge against him – but, in this small, tight-knit community, the owner may prefer not to do so. I’ll keep you posted.

So that wraps up the first Happy Valley blog – it’s a bit long, but I hope you stayed the course. More from the Valley shortly.

Comments

[Derek]

More power to you guys - the work you do is an example to us all!