Held at Getrudes Baptist Githogoro Westlands North on 1rd December, 2018
How best could we have celebrated our 3rd Anniversary? Together with KESCAVA and the County Veterinary, we organized a Rabies Vaccination Campaign which was held at Getrudes Baptist located at Githogoro village in Westlands North. One beautiful thing about this campaign is that we didn’t wait for the locals to come to the ground. Though it was chilly, wet and drizzling early morning we moved out to different homes vaccinating cats, dogs and also bunnies.
It was very interesting to note how our three young ambassadors who took our volunteers to different homes collecting cats and bunnies to be vaccinated. This is not just interesting but exciting that Animal Welfare is not about the adults but also the young ones. By 3Pm, we had vaccinated 53 cats, 24 adult dogs, 20 puppies, and 5 bunnies, totalling to 102.
As we celebrate our three years of existence, we have so far been able to rescue, rehome, spay/neuter and vaccinated 221 dogs and 45 cats to date.
This campaign would not be a success if we didn’t have a team of Veterinary Doctors who sacrificed their time and braved the weather and going round to vaccinate the dogs and cats.
Thank you Prof. Susan Mbugua, Dr. James Nyariki, Dr. Desmond Tutu and Dr. Fransica Ngatia.
We cannot forget our volunteers from the University of Nairobi Vet students, and our TNR Trust volunteers Priya, Carla, Asante sana. You are the best!
As a boy growing up in Nyamira County, Erick Onsongo had ambitions of helping people by becoming a doctor – but he couldn’t ignore his love for animals that had grown from his time spent looking after sheep and cattle during his school holidays and at weekends.
If he was to become a vet, he realised he could help both. By teaching locals how to treat and look after animals properly, the animals would benefit – and the communities, with a greater understanding of animal behaviour, would be more tolerant of them.
After a chance meeting with Amy Rapp of the TNR Trust in 2016, whilst still training as a vet at the University of Nairobi, he knew he had found an organisation that embodied the principles he believed in, and he decided to dedicate his free time in helping the TNR Trust.
As his involvement with the organisation grew, he became more involved with the mobile clinic and along with Carla, Erick devised an education programme which the TNR could put in place to get the message out to communities on how vaccination would keep their animals healthy and sterilisation would prevent the over population of cats and dogs.
Erick (right) “in action”
Erick is hugely excited about the official launch of the clinic in January 2019 – pending the issuance of our KVB (Kenya Vet Board Permit) – and is keen to visit the more rural parts of Nairobi – so that he can provide much needed medical care to animals who are suffering and advise locals on vaccinations and what to do in the event of a dog or a cat bite.
Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells! – the countdown to Christmas has begun and we are taking full advantage of this season of goodwill by busily recruiting volunteers for the TNR mobile clinic.
The first person we’d like to thank for joining our team is Erick Onsongo -one of the mobile clinic’s veterinary volunteers who’s been pivotal in helping set the programme up.
We will be profiling Erick next week, who explains how a chance meeting with the TNR’s Amy Rapp and a desire to better the lives of animals and people has changed the course of his life.
If you have any questions you’d like to ask Erick – either for the profile or to find out how you can volunteer your services, then please get in touch with the TNR Trust.
The TNR Trust’s mobile clinic will be on the road in January, to fulfill our mission of improving community health by sterilizing and vaccinating dogs and cats in and around Nairobi.
If you’re a registered vet or veterinary student and would like to help the TNR Trust, or if your company is looking to provide funding for a very worthwhile cause, then we’d love to hear from you!
Please click on the link to see how you can help.
VETS
We need registered vets and veterinary students to sterilize and vaccinate animals brought to us against rabies. They will work alongside our volunteers to educate the communities we meet on the benefits of maintaining a healthy dog and cat population. If you want to be part of this please contact us via email
CORPORATE SPONSORSHIP
Sterilization and vaccination is important – but expensive. We are offering a competitive branding package for potential sponsors as well as advertising space on our mobile clinic. If you think your company would like to be part of this please contact us via email
Going with the theme for this year’s World Rabies Day that is “Share the Message, Save a Life.” on 21st September, 2018, TNR Trust in collaboration with Friends of Karura held a half day Kids Event at Karura Forest. The intention of the event was to sensitize school children of the age of 6 years to 14 years old children on the subject rabies. It should be noted 2,000 Kenyans die every year because of rabies
For the event to be more relevant and factual, we invited Fifth Year Veterinary students from the University of Nairobi who took through the children on that particular subject. And a lot of questions came out for the speaker to answer during Q&A time.
It will be important to note some of the interesting questions the students had concerning rabies. The questions included:
Can an infected dog that is pregnant, give birth to puppies that are infected with rabies?
Where did this disease come from?
If a dog has rabies, can it be treated and get healed?
If a dog has rabies, can I kill?
What causes rabies?
How do we vaccinate dogs?
If cats are also infected with
These and many other questions were asked by the students during the talk and our able tutor of the day Rashid Ocholla did a great job in using very simple language to make the students understand what is rabies, symptoms if bitten and how to prevent rabies infection and spread.
Being a children event, we had stuffed toys of dogs, stethoscopes and Dr’s coat, empty syringes and a digital weighing scale, where they imitated being Vet Doctors, with the help of the vet students, they were shown how to vaccinate a dog and where exactly. It was real fun for the students.
With the sponsorship from Swedish Society, we had prepared colouring booklets with drawings showing how to take care and treat our dogs and crayons for the students, which we gave them to colour and take home.
Being an education event, Swahili Rabies posters were given to all the students and their teachers to take home to their parents and neighbours. The teachers and the students were very happy for learning much about rabies and how it can be prevented.
Lucy came from near a food shop in Ridgeways and had been just dropped off at her new home when she escaped from the compound. The compound was on Lower Kabete Road (Nairobi), near Ngecha junction. The new adopters are a couple in their 80s and are still very worried about her.
She has been regularly sighted so we haven’t given up hope yet! We are still desperate to find her.
1st of July is ID Your Pet Day, to spread awareness on the importance of it. Many pets go missing each year for various reasons: a gap in the enclosure, panicking from fireworks celebration or thunderstorm, running off during a walk, etc. Identification can make all the difference if your pet goes missing. Your dog should always have a collar with an ID tag that includes your name, current phone number, and any other important information (such as medical conditions).
Call “Valley Creations” for a custom made Pet ID Tag. 50 Ksh per tag goes to TNR Trust!
Unfortunately, collars and ID tags are not foolproof and dogs and cats can still get lost. Collars can break or fall-off, leaving your beloved pet among the countless, unidentified lost strays. Many of these tragedies occur every day worldwide, but the fact is that it can easily be prevented with the use of microchips*. However, keep in mind that a microchip is only as good as the information you link it to. If it isn’t up to date, it won’t help get your pet home! If you’ve changed any of your contact information (phone, address, even email) make sure you update that information immediately. ID Your Pet Day is your yearly reminder to double check that all your pet’s identification information is correct!
What are microchips?
A microchip is an implantable computer chip that contains a unique identification number. This number is not much use on its own, and needs to be linked to your information in a regional database. In Kenya, that database is kept by the East African Kennel Club.
Microchips are no bigger than a grain of rice. They are placed under your pet’s skin with a needle and syringe, not much different from a routine vaccine.
Unlike collars and ID tags, a microchip can never break or fall off. They work by receiving a radio signal from a scanner and transmitting the encoded chip identification number back to the scanner. With the chip identification number in hand, the vital contact information is only a phone call away: +254 (0)718923732 (EAKC)
A microchip only carries its unique ID and can NOT be traced using GPS. They are a very reliable method of identification, but they ultimately depend on the information that you give. So remember to update your information and provide multiple emergency contacts in case your pet gets lost while you are out of town.
Heaven forbid, but if your pet does go missing, take the following steps:
Post a detailed description of your pet and area where your pet was lost from (and last seen) on social media: Dog Lover s Nairobi/ East Africa Kennel Club
Talk to people on the street in the area where your dog was last seen
Be diligent. Stop by KSCPA as often as you can and walk through the kennels on your own to see if your pet was brought in. As the main shelter, KSPCA is often overwhelmed and bursting at the seams.
By making sure your pet has a microchip, you are giving yourself and your pet the best chance of a speedy, happy reunion. Just ask Toffee! She and her owners learned the hard way what it meant not being micro-chipped…
Toffee vs Microchip: 0-1
Through the kindness of strangers, Toffee was kept from getting hit by a car and they notified TNR Trust to come and help catch the little rascal. After giving us a bit of a merry chase through the woods while trying to dodge ISK School traffic, we were able to catch her and bring her to the vet for a check-up. Toffee had a nasty looking wound that looked like an injury from barbed wire, but she was fine once it was healed up. She also received rabies and tetanus shots and was dewormed.
As she did not have a microchip, collar or tag, we posted her on our Facebook page and other forums. The owners saw the poster and contacted us. They footed the full vet bill and were made aware that if Toffee would have had a microchip, they would have been reunited much quicker.
As we celebrate our three years of existence, we have so far been able to rescue, rehome, spay/neuter and vaccinated 221 dogs and 45 cats to date.
with an ID tag that includes your name, current phone number, and any other important information (such as medical conditions).
