On Thursday, November 18, the Jbay Animal Rescue clinic was devastated by their eighth break-in this year.
Kouga Express spoke to Cindy Muller from the project to find out what happened.
Jbay Animal Rescue is a non-profit organisation which serves the community and helps those who normally would not have access to veterinary care. It also provides education about how to care for pets and animal feed.
They do weekly outreaches to Hankey, Kareedouw, Loerie and Thornhill, where they hand out dog food, take care of emaciated animals and provide free rabies and other vaccinations.
On Thursdays, they serve the Jeffreys Bay community in the same way, providing kennels for animals that are kept without shelter and doing inspections when there is suspected animal neglect or cruelty. They work very closely with the SPCA.
“The latest break-in left us with all our security and garden gates stolen, security lights stolen and the container where we keep the dog and pig feed broken into and emptied. It’s such a setback every time this happens and we honestly don’t know what to do anymore to keep our premises safe,” Muller said.
The man who sleeps in the building and watches over it at night (not a security guard), was threatened with violence if he did not open the doors. Still he refused and was brutally attacked and robbed of his bag of belongings.
“Other than the break-in, in the past few weeks we have suffered theft of all of our tools and gardening equipment, all the razor wire off our fencing and our community clinic sign. We also recently received a donated truckload of pallets to build kennels with and every single one has been stolen. We are at our wits’ end.”
Muller added that the tragedy is that this hinders their efforts to help the community.
“We are honestly out of ideas on how to keep our premises safe. Still we will do our best to protect those most precious members of our families and homes, those who cannot speak for themselves.”
If anyone can assist in any way, contact Cindy at Jbay Animal Rescue on 083 320 4173.
Cindy Muller from Jbay Animal Rescue Sanctuary, on behalf of the animal-loving community as a whole, would like to honour one of their founding members, Dee Griffiths, who sadly passed away on November 22.
“Dee moved over from SPCA to ARS and was one of the co-founders. In the early years, Dee helped manage the charity shop, wrote newspaper articles every week for ARS, managed correspondence and held many AGMs and committee meetings at her home.
“She also supplied our early spay days with delicious treats. On our first spay day at the Pellsrus hall, Dee registered all the dogs the owners brought along and hid many puppies under her chair to be rescued.
“She was kind and most compassionate to the animals and owners. Dee also assisted, hands-on, with all our cake sales, book sales and dog walks. In all, Dee was a general hands-on committed volunteer for many years. We will miss her dearly.”
