A little about us
We have been established as a Gibraltar registered charity (number 266) since June 2016. Initially, the charity was simply 2 people who had a passion and drive to help abandoned and mistreated dogs in our local area with the aim to help rehome neglected and mistreated dogs. Today our charity has grown.
We work closely in Gibraltar with:
- the Animal Welfare Centre
- the Royal Gibraltar Police
- HM Customs and,
- local families requiring assistance
We also work with a number of organisations across Spain, namely:
- the dog pound in La Linea, Prodean, where there are approximately 600 dogs, a third of which have been abandoned there by Gibraltarians/people associated to Gibraltar
- the Los Barrios pound
- individuals wanting to help dogs from kill shelters across Spain.
In the last 4 years AINF has focused on helping the most mistreated, vulnerable and ‘invisible’ of dogs. We have successfully rehomed over 3000 animals during this time. AINF is run by
Volunteers (who have full time jobs) and is supported by one part-time employee. We have worked day and night to save and change these lives.
We have on average 60 dogs in the Charity’s care at any given time and on average, 30 dogs are rehomed per month. The dogs are rehomed in Gibraltar, Spain, Holland, Germany, Finland and Sweden and every potential new home is carefully vetted and approved prior to the adoption. We have also rehomed cats, rabbits and hamsters!
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We are purely funded by the generous donations of the general public and a small amount of donations from local corporates.
Our projects
As a charity, our mission is to take the most vulnerable dogs who are either sick, pregnant, old or on death row, and place them in the safety of private kennels.
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Once in kennels, their medical needs can be looked after, they can be fed and fattened up, their socialisation improves substantially and they are far more likely to be adopted. We have taken dogs deemed unadoptable and behind bars for years and found them loving homes.
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Below is further detail on the causes we help champion.
Kill station in Northern Spain
Every few weeks, dogs are put to sleep at this kill station and we are committed to saving as many as we can. It involves hard work and a lot of fundraising, as money is needed to bring the dogs down, put them in private kennels and pay for blood tests, castration and, often, follow up medications as the poor dogs usually have blood infections or leish. On the whole, they are some of the most balanced dogs we have met and we cannot allow them to die for no reason.
La Linea shelter
We help the La Linea shelter with the dogs who have been invisible for the longest. Usually these are the oldies or the dogs with black or grey coats. Sometimes they have been there for years. By moving the dogs into private kennels or a foster home, we can get to know them and give them more focused care - it is much more likely that they will get adopted if they are in foster care.
Los Barrios shelter
We have been helping SOS PPP Los Barrios for a number of years now on both projects and finding homes for some of the dogs. When asked to help a dog, we will take it from the shelter and place it in training kennels where it can learn obedience training and make it much more likely to become adopted. You can find more detailed information on the projects we have undertaken here.
Adoptions in Germany, Finland and Sweden
We have sister charities in other countries, mainly Germany, Finland and Sweden, which enable access to adoptions in these countries. These are countries with much more developed laws on animal care and cruelty and therefore they have a much smaller number of abandoned dogs than Spain.
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Our German counterparts have helped with all the dogs coming down from the Northern Spain kill stations which means they have homed over 50 dogs in the last 4 months from this project alone. They take between 5 and 15 dogs from separate projects every month (along with many, many more from other shelters too).
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Our Finnish and Swedish teams have been instrumental in taking some of our most unwanted and ignored dogs. With such vast spaces of land and wonderful country homes, they are the perfect place for some of the more lively and powerful breeds to live long, happy and calm lives.