We met poor Kwikwi the dog when she crawled out of a storm drain, shaking with palsy and pregnant. Now, she just had 7 puppies!

In early September, we told you about Kwikwi, a pitiful, pregnant street dog in Arusha, Tanzania. She lives in a storm drain and is afflicted with a severe neurological condition that constantly wracks her body with tremors.

Kwikwi gave birth to seven puppies at the end of a rubbish-strewn blind alley. One died immediately, and the others had no chance of survival where they were born. There is no shelter anywhere. Right now, Kwikwi and her pups are living at the office of our partner, the Arusha Society for the Protection of Animals (ASPA), but this can only be temporary. We must act now to provide longer-term shelter for Kwikwi’s pups and the 60 other homeless dogs we had to leave behind.

Please, << Test First Name >>, will you help us rush funds to ASPA, so they can urgently get Kwikwi and her puppies to a place of safety and get them the critical care they need to survive?

In Arusha, Tanzania, countless homeless street dogs roam the streets surviving on scraps. In this city of 750,000 people, there is not a single animal shelter. When dogs get sick, they die or if they recover live sad, suffering lives. There are no laws to protect them. The authorities don’t help. The dogs are on their own…

…dogs like Kwikwi, named because she has an uncontrollable tremor that constantly makes her small frame shudder.

We met Kwikwi as she crawled out of a storm drain in a shabby, dirty street where some 60 street dogs live. She approached us wagging her tail, shaking piteously as she did so. And she was pregnant. Our hearts went out to her.

There were other street dogs there, but Kwikwi was unmissable because of her tremor, because she was pregnant and because she is so friendly, clearly hopeful that we had come to rescue her.

We had to act immediately, and we did. But we’re going to need your help.

There is one small local organization that helps street dogs, the Arusha Society for the Protection of Animals (ASPA). We asked ASPA’s vet, Dr. Frank Alkado, to examine Kwikwi. ASPA is poor and has nowhere to examine sick animals, so Dr. Frank went with us to examine her in the street where she lives. He said Kwikwi’s pathetic state was nerve damage, caused either by a car hitting her, a neurological disease or the after-effects of canine distemper.

The good news is he believes that, with six months intensive treatment, Kwikwi can recover, but treatment needs to be started straight away.

Three drugs are required, and this is how difficult things are in Tanzania - in Europe or America, the drugs are readily available, but in Arusha, we scoured pharmacy after pharmacy, managing to get one drug here, another there, and taking half a day to do so.

You will be pleased to know that Kwikwi got her first treatment later that day. It will cost about $3,000 (£2,600) to provide Kwikwi the help she needs for six months, and if we can raise the money, Dr. Frank will visit her weekly to treat her. Of course, he will also monitor her puppies.

Kwikwi touched our hearts, but so did so many other dogs in the street which is called Mamlaka Ya Maji Road. The street is a jumble of shops and houses - a slaughterhouse is next to a pharmacy, and a tailor works an old sewing machine next to a butcher’s hanging fly-infested meat. The dogs sleep in drains or in alleys. Motorbikes and cars roar up and down the rutted dirt roads - dogs move fast or die.

We cannot change the tragic situation in Arusha overnight, but we can make a difference, one street at a time, and so…

…with your help we have promised to provide every street dog in Mamlaka Ya Maji Road with wound treatment, deworming, vaccinations against the parvo virus and rabies, and sterilization.

We know that if you met Kwikwi, you would want to make her little life better. By donating today, you will, and you will also improve the lives of many other animals. We have other long-term plans to help animals in Tanzania because the need there is so great, and we pride ourselves on working where other organizations sometimes hesitate to go. Please join our crusade to help Tanzanian street dogs one step at a time.

Kwikwi, and now her puppies, are our first patient, but with your help, the 59 other dogs who live in the street will also benefit and hopefully we will enrich the lives of animals who so far have never known love and compassion on one street.

For the animals,

Brian and Gloria Davies (and Max and Flora!)
Founders
Network for Animals

P.S. Arusha is home to the African Union’s African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, but in Tanzania, there are no laws to protect street dogs let alone rights for animals. Street dogs are completely neglected, forgotten victims in a society where animal lives don’t matter. There is no justice for these innocent creatures, but your donation will at least bring them medical care and hope for a brighter future.