Rural Animal Care

16/05/2026

We were very fortunate to have a VAWZ sponsored Spay Day last Tuesday, where 56 dogs will now have the chance of a better and healthier life!
33 females spayed
23 males neutered.

We drive each and every dog back to their home, post surgery, along with their owners and doggy siblings who come for a rabies jab...300 vaccines were administered, but sadly, plenty more dogs were waiting after the vaccines ran out. 😪

We send each Spay Day dog home with a post op & general info leaflet, a blanket, a lead and a kg of food

Our very grateful thanks, as always, to Mel and her wonderful, hardworking VAWZ vets & assistants.

Grateful thanks to our fantastic RAC volunteers and helpers too!

14/05/2026

11/04/2026

Cheeky N
MJ Br/W
Biliary and Malnutrition

21/03/2026

The Chemo Run

TVT (Transmissible Venereal Tumours) are very common in the rural and peri-urban areas around us because there are so many unsterilized, unconfined dogs running around, and we have so many coming into us for help that barely a week goes by without any. In fact, in days gone by, dogs with this cancerous canine STD were often euthanized because it’s so readily transmitted and sadly, even now that their owners know it can be treated, very few of them are able to take them into the vet for sterilization and a minimum of 6 chemotherapy treatments, without which, the cancers will recur.
Euphemistically referred to as ‘the flower disease’ (from the scarlet cauliflower-like cancerous masses that can range in size from 5 mm to 10 cm wide) the dogs usually have internal or external ge***al tumours that transmit the disease sexually, but it can also (rarely) be passed on to the skin or mucous membranes of the mouth, nose or eyes at birth or through sniffing and grooming. Fortunately, word of mouth’s a powerful thing and we don’t often see large tumours nowadays, with most of our dogs being diagnosed and treated early because their owners bring them in when they start bleeding and, while we almost always have a handful of dogs going in on our weekly chemo run, we’ve just hit an all-time record, with 9 dogs undergoing treatment at the moment.

16/03/2026

Zvafadza M
(MA) Brown Greyhound
Broken L Foreleg

23/02/2026

Chaser M
(FA Tricolour)
Lacerated Teat

17/02/2026

Katty M
FJ Black & White Kitten
Enucleation

08/02/2026

Dudush C (FA Black & Tan)
& Zeus M (FA Tricoloured; Black, brown & white)
More Hypoproteinemia – Our last post on the subject!!

Shortly after Tiger K’s return, two more ascites cases came into us in quick succession - Dudush C and Zeus M. Although both were in need of attention, Zeus was nowhere near as bad as the others and you’ll be glad to hear that all three of them are now happy, healthy and home again. Unwilling to sterilize them when they were so vulnerable, the vets are quite happy to do them now and we’re taking them in to be done this week because we don’t want the girls to have pups, which would put a strain on their new-found strength.

21/01/2026

Tiger K
(MA) Black/Tan GSD
Hypoproteinemia Update

As we wish you much health and happiness in 2026, I thought I’d give you a quick update on Tiger K, the GSD that came in towards the end of last year with ascites, his abdomen swollen with the fluid build-up that’s symptomatic of organ failure. Altho it can have many different causes, a poor diet and severe protein deficiency are usually behind hypoproteinemia (aka kwashiorkor in humans) and as many owners aren’t aware that a diet of sadza isn’t enough to sustain their dogs, we see this more often than we’d like, as you’ll see in the next post, which features 2 more little ascites girls, Dudush and Zeus, both of whom arrived within a month of Tiger…

04/12/2025

Last Tuesday we held another successful Spay Day for the rural dogs in our area. There is such a great need for Sterilization and we're so pleased that so many people in our area have responded so positively to our persuasion!
This was our second Spay Day of the year and our immense gratitude go out to Mel and the wonderful vets from VAWZ... as always, they worked tirelessly, to spay 33 females and 30 males!!
63 dogs now face a better, brighter, healthier future!
Thanks also for the help given by our ever faithful, volunteers 🐕 ❤️

29/11/2025

MISSING DOG – NADA
Black & Tan Female (Spayed)
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Thompson, Gardiner Road on 27th Nov 2025
PHONE 0711 690 708 - TAWANDA
PHONE 0712 448 766 – APRIL