Donetsk has discovered an ambulance for dogs. This is where an ambulance with a vet brigade helping animals has been recently presented. Now to help dogs one should only dial a mobile number 050 549 33 99. However, there is only one ambulance of this type and it cannot go outside the city. It will be based on the territory of the dog pound called PIF. This is where dogs will be treated. After the treatment dogs will be taken to their usual places or given to carers.
According to the paravets, they had almost fifty calls during their first working week and the specialists helped forty animals. They say that it would be better if people did not leave the dogs after calling the ambulance but waited for it to arrive.
The dog ambulance has the same first-aid kit as the usual one including antiseptic and antibacterial medicines. However, the administrator of PIF Yulia explained to The Day: “Actually, it is not an ambulance for dogs. This vehicle is aimed at taking animals from shopping malls and supermarkets. It does not have any specific equipment, so if some dogs need X-ray, their owners have to take their pets to a hospital themselves. Only when the ambulance is free it can accept calls.”
It was possible to buy this vehicle owing to the help of the Development of Ukraine Foundation within the framework of the project “Safe city for people and animals.” The car costs 250,000 hryvnias. The local authorities say that they would not be able to give the city such a present without help. Now they believe that the number of sick dogs will diminish in Donetsk and it will become a safer city.
We remind our readers that the problem of stray dogs aggravated during the preparation for Euro-2012 when animals’ rights activists raised an alarm: dogs were massively caught and killed. Then the German princess Maja von Hohenzollern who came to Donetsk invited by the Development of Ukraine Foundation supported stray animals. “The world is shocked with the fact that the dogs in Kyiv are being caught and killed. It is not only cruel but illegal. We have already collected over 500,000 of signatures all over the world,” Her Highness declared. The Donetsk authorities promised to resolve this problem and launched the program of neutering and vaccination in cooperation with Rinat Akhmetov’s foundation.
