One of the members of our organization, accompanied by the director of the StrayCoCo Foundation, Mrs. Helen Wormser, during these days is in Switzerland and has met important entities to exchange best practices in terms of dog housing and the necessary institutional and community support required for proper and sustainable animal sheltering.

Our organization is constantly informed about the best practices in other states that properly manage the dynamics of dogs and companion animals in general. All our knowledge is constantly forwarded to the competent authorities to make a serious and professional management of the dynamics of dogs with keepers/owners and stray dogs.

Arif Aliu, visited the animal shelter “Strubeli” in Switzerland, to be informed in more detail about the work of this shelter.

During the visit, the shelter staff, specifically, Mrs. Athina Löhrer, informed us about the work in this shelter, the animal treatment processes, the adoptions, and the costs to maintain a proper shelter, so that the accommodation in the temporary centers or rescue centers becomes as self-sustaining as possible. Mrs. Löhrer was also in Kosovo a few years ago and has extensive experience in the field of caring for animals housed in shelters.

This visit was very important, as a shelter like “Strubeli” in Switzerland, should be an example for shelters in Kosovo, how to work to respect the welfare of animals in shelters.

Our organization is part of the working group for amending the Administrative Instruction (MAFRD) 04/2017, to include the legal regulation of shelters in Kosovo. Shelters in Kosovo need to be improved (certainly with institutional support if they are competent to operate) and to be efficient in their work. The ad hoc and non-systematized work of any rescue center or shelter, will not help the general situation of animal welfare but will only create wrong illusions in society, making it seem that only with the shelter of street animals, the difficult situation of many stray dogs in our country can be solved.

We all know that all street animals should enjoy the right of shelter and not suffer from many dangers on the street but anyway the shelter of stray animals should be done only if the sources of the problem of breeding and proliferating of dogs on the street are improved. That is, all the measures proposed in our strategy must be implemented so that rescue centers (with sustainable adoption programs) also function properly.

We are extremely grateful to the staff of “Strubeli” and Mrs. Löhrer for the reception and exchange of knowledge about the management of a shelter and to Mrs. Wormser who never stops helping in Kosovo, only for the benefit of animals and people in our country.

To see the photos from this visit, click this LINK.