Woman Helps South African Pet Owners

Cora Bailey has altered the South African pet community by helping thousands of animals and pet owners, like the two shown above, receive veterinary assistance, adoption services and adequate care. (ZT Pet News Photo Courtesy of IFAW)

Woman Helps South African Pet Owners: Cora Bailey knows first-hand the struggles a third world country faces, but surprisingly she says that some of the world's poorest citizens share what they have with their pets. "The cupboard may be bare but the dog dish is full."

NEW YORK -- In some of the most unstable countries in the world, Cora Bailey leads a team in healing not only animals but the entire communities in which they live.

Partnered with the International Fund for Animal Welfare, Bailey created the Community Led Animal Welfare program which brings new hope to impoverished pets and their owners.

Since CLAW's inception in 1999, it has helped thousands of animals with veterinary care, adoption services and animal education to helpless pet owners struggling just to care for themselves.

Cora tells ZT Pet News about her tireless work and holistic approach to improving the lives of animals in places where volatility and social struggles reign.

What was your motivation behind creating CLAW?

My motivation was the complete absence of any kind of veterinary care for the thousands of animals in areas affected by apartheid violence.

In the early 1990s, South Africa was in a state of virtual civil war. Thousands of people fled their homes and were unable to take their animals with them. Animal welfare services were, and still are, primarily situated in affluent suburbs. The poor are excluded from these services, making pet ownership difficult.

I started CLAW to help as I could. I saw a need and acted. The project started small but grew. IFAW came in and adopted the project and helped me to expand it. We've been able to help hundreds of thousands of animals but, still, every day I see more need than I can possibly meet.

When did you discover you had a passion for animals?

My earliest happy memories are of time spent with the many animals we shared our home with. I brought home every stray, and spent hours nursing fledglings. (I still do the same thing, of course.)

How did that realization change your life?

It eventually led to me working with animals as a full-time job. Every day I wake and go to sleep thinking of the animals and people in the community. What can I do to help them?

The pressing need for veterinary services is a daily reality. The need for all manner of social services is a reality. Each day brings drama and crisis. Each day there are new things to do, and new people and animals to help.

My average day can be so bizarre that I don't know where to begin. It could be HIV/AIDS counseling, dealing with an animal cruelty case, organizing a rescue of a monkey that has strayed into a squatter camp, dealing with prospective adopters, chasing down a dog on the freeway, meetings with community leaders -- or even responding to queries from American journalists.

My job is stressful but never boring.

In what countries does CLAW mainly support?

It's maybe important to insert a word of context here. The CLAW idea has grown into a methodology, an approach, to addressing the needs of animals in very poor communities.

It began with my project in South Africa but IFAW has expanded this model to various parts of the world. IFAW now runs programs to help dogs and cats in Mexico, Russia, Indonesia, Canada, China, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands and the United States. There is a similar project in Cape Town, South Africa, as well.

Do you find the treatment of animals in impoverished nations to be significantly worse than in the U.S.?

We work in some of the most deprived communities in South Africa -- but deliberate cruelty is probably no worse than in the U.S.

Certainly, the lack of resources contributes a great deal to the suffering of animals here. It is not uncommon for children to be asked to dispose of unwanted dogs by hanging them. We have our heartbreaking stories here, just as you have them in the U.S.

With so many animals needing help in the U.S., why should we focus overseas?

We don't encourage an either/or proposition regarding helping animals overseas or in the U.S. That's not a choice we push onto people. We hope people are moved to help animals in their local communities -- wherever they live -- and/or in far away communities.

What we try to do is help the animals we can and to help those which are most in need. It's a herculean task and there is always more work than we can possibly do. We hope people, wherever they live, are moved to help.

Part of what IFAW does is bring the plight of these animals to a larger audience and hope they will respond. The simple facts of poverty often mean that the animals in communities with scarce resources need the most help.

Why focus on improving these animals' lives, when there are a plethora other social issues found in these same countries?

Again, this is a false choice. One can be concerned about cruelty to animals and also be concerned about rising HIV/AIDS rates. They're not mutually exclusive.

Helping others and helping animals enlarges our humanity. Some people identify with animals in need, some identify with people in need, some identify with both.

Keep your eyes open. Be curious about the world. Cultivate your empathy. Help where you can.

What misconceptions do people have regarding the ownership and treatment of pets in Africa?

The misconception is that poor people treat their animals poorly. That's usually not the case. The poor people of Africa love their pets the same as people all over the world, but many of them live in an environment with very few resources. Their generosity is frequently inspiring. Often, what little they have, they share. The cupboard may be bare but the dog dish is full.

The reality is that too many people, in Africa and around the world, survive on very little. They have little access to the veterinary care, to the medicine, to the food, to the basic infrastructure to care for an animal that people in the United States take for granted.

Additionally, many of the pet owners we work with are dealing, simultaneously, with other problems: AIDS, poverty, job loss, eviction. We do our best to meet those needs.

Out of all the animals you have helped in the past 10 years, what instance has been the most profound to you?

The rescue of Alphie, a young chimpanzee. He had been smuggled into South Africa by a truck driver and kept in a windowless garage for weeks. He jumped straight into my arms when he saw me, and clung to me all the way back to my home.

IFAW immediately arranged for him to travel to Zambia's Chimfunshi Chimp Orphanage, but endless red tape meant that he lived in our home for three weeks before we could fly to Zambia.

Sharing our suburban home with him was an unforgettable experience. At 2-and-a-half-years-old, Alphie was a handful. Our home became a quarantine station, and our lives were put on hold while we kept Alphie out of mischief. Taking him into the rain forest with the other orphans and their caregivers was unforgettable. Clearly this was the best place for him, and the other chimps welcomed him with hugs and kisses. My heart broke when I had to leave him. I will never forget him.

How do your partnerships with other humane organizations also benefit these foreign countries?

The fact that CLAW is a project of IFAW gives us a bigger audience. It helps us communicate the problems in South Africa -- and what we are doing to address them -- to many more people than we could do alone. That helps in terms of resources and support. And, over time, it has also helped establish a framework for working with animals in poor communities. The fundamental aspects of what we do in South Africa is replicated, to some degree, in programs in Mexico, Russia, Canada, Indonesia, the United States and elsewhere.

How is CLAW funded?

CLAW is a project of IFAW and is funded as such. In addition, we get donations from local businesses and individuals who want to help. For instance, I get food parcels delivered to my house via donation. I take those and feed children in the community who have been orphaned, who need that food to survive as both their parents have died of AIDS.

How can someone get involved and/or volunteer for CLAW?

Yes! Contact IFAW directly.

What do you hope to do with CLAW in the future?

I hope we can continue to do more of the same. We do the best we can but there is still an enormous unmet need. I hope we can do more to help more animals and people.

How do you split your time between the varying clinics?

Each day we have set clinics at various points in Johannesburg. The people in the community know the dates and locations of the clinics. I visit the clinics each day to see that things are running smoothly and to deal with unexpected issues.

A good portion of my time is spent dealing with the unexpected. A dog that has been hit by a car somewhere or a dog that has accidentally eaten rat poison and needs immediate care. Emergency calls come in continually. My average day is a day of ongoing triage.

For example, right now I am worried about a 14-year-old boy named Moses who lives in a shack on a rubbish dump. His parents died a few years ago and he is on his own. The dump is overrun with drug gangs and dangerous people. Moses has taken it upon himself to care for the dogs of people who have died or been killed. He has about 20 dogs right now. Moses spends his day rummaging for food for himself and the dogs.

We met Moses when he brought a dog suffering from distemper to one of our mobile clinics. The dog had to be humanely euthanized. My team went to his shack to spay and neuter the rest of his dogs.

Recently, Moses had an enormous swelling on his face, and said that he had a toothache. It had been freezing cold in South Africa, with temperatures plummeting to -2 C. Moses had no shoes on, and was foraging for food on the dump when we came. We took Moses to a local clinic for treatment of his abscess. He was reluctant to go because he was worried about his clothing. We took him to a store and purchased an outfit for him. Clothing for an 11-year-old was a perfect fit!

We want to get him a constant supply of food for his dogs which would prevent him having to forage for long hours -- but we want to be assured that he will not be the target of some of the criminals who live on the dump, that he will not be robbed of this food. He has obviously suffered a great deal, and despite his size does a grown man's work every day. Right now we are trying to find a safer place for Moses to live a little easier with his dogs.

The recession is having an affect on the poorest of the poor, and I am devastated by the amount of people who come to us seeking assistance. Zimbabwean refugees are making their way to our clinic and begging for food. Some have not eaten in days. On Saturdays we are feeding an increasing number of children, last week there were 57 in the food queue, most of them had also brought their dogs. More and more dogs are coming in every day. We have little space to house them as we need to keep doing our spays.

Finding new homes is not easy, and hugely time-consuming. I guess that all animal welfare organizations are currently under the same pressure, but we have the humanitarian crisis to deal with too, which makes the work that much more complicated.

Moses' story, which I see replicated every day, shows people love animals in the most trying circumstances. It also shows the challenges we are up against here in South Africa. It shows how we become entwined in people's lives through their animals. I could tell you many, many stories like Moses'. We live them on a daily basis.

Do you have any pets yourself?

Many. I have lots of animals -- dogs, cats, tortoises, etc. -- plus, I always have stray animals that may stay for a short time or longer. There are always new animals coming in and out of my home.

What is one pet you have always wanted but have never had?

I don't know. I have more animals than I can deal with at the moment!

In your opinion, what is the biggest issue animals face in our global society?

Cruelty. There is never a justifiable reason to treat an animal cruelly, any animal. If we could endeavor, as a global society, to treat animals more humanely we would reduce a number of the animal-related problems we face across the globe -- overpopulation, exploitation for profit, poaching, etc. And as we move closer to this goal, we become the beneficiaries as much as the animals themselves.

Animals are part of the fabric of our lives. They've been a part of our lives since the beginning of recorded culture. The earliest cave paintings are of animals. They've made their way into our literature, our movies, our imagination and our day-to-day reality.

Attempting to treat them with more kindness has the affect of making us, as a people, more kind. They enlarge our compassion for each other and living things, they help us appreciate the beauty and complexity of the world.

What is one thing other people can do to help improve the lives of animals?

Donate at www.ifaw.org

Elisabeth Brock is an editorial intern with ZT Pet News and can be reached at ebrock@zootoo.com.