PlumPets Animal Shelter

Written by, and photographs supplied by, Julia Travis – Volunteer, PlumPets Animal Shelter

Professional photography by Tiny Toes Animal Photography

PlumPets are pro-life, second chances and forever homes.

We believe in making each stray’s life better, forever.

Paulette Bousfield and Duncan Stevens established PlumPets Animal Shelter, a no-kill shelter in Plumstead, Cape Town, in 2006. They’ve dedicated their lives to rescuing, rehabilitating, and rehoming strays in the area. The dogs and cats are housed in a residential home behind the Plumstead Animal Hospital and in kennel rooms and cages in the hospital itself.

Answering a community need

They started the shelter in response to a need amongst the clients at Plumstead Animal Hospital. Clients were rescuing and bringing in stray animals, desperate for both medical assistance and help with homing them. It grew from that need and word got out, and soon locals were bringing in more strays (puppies, dogs, kittens, and cats). At our maximum numbers, the shelter had 48 dogs. The shelter employed and coordinated four dog walkers and had extensive community service volunteers helping us, as well as taking dogs to hydrotherapy, dog training classes, off-lead walks and day fosters.

Running the shelter has been a massive financial drain on Duncan and Paulette, and the shelter has run largely from their own pockets with limited income from donations.

Covid calamity

When the Covid pandemic hit in 2020 and the threat of a hard lockdown loomed, Paulette and Duncan realised that they couldn’t manage with so many dogs and limited garden space and without walkers or volunteers. We made an urgent plea for fosters for the dogs during lockdown and were fortunate to find fosters and even some forever homes, bringing our numbers down substantially. We had to curb the number of staff and volunteers to limit the risk of Covid infection (Duncan, who’s the only vet at the hospital, is asthmatic, so if he gets sick, the hospital closes).

The shelter lost most of our regular debit order donations as people lost their jobs and stopped donating, so the shelter could no longer afford to employ so many walkers.

Re-envisioning rescue

Paulette and Duncan are close to 60, and they realised that they couldn’t continue rescuing dogs that could potentially end up at the shelter long-term. But, as the saying goes: once in rescue, always in rescue, so Paulette decided to re-envision how we do rescue.

She looked at the local animal welfare organisations and realised that there were a number that didn’t have a physical shelter or medical care but relied on their network of fosters and finding forever homes. Paulette decided that, although we were no longer taking in new dogs, we could help other organisations with medically fragile cases. If the puppy or dog was too sick or injured to be homed straight away, we would take them in for the organisation and help with temporary medical care until the dog was well enough for homing, leaving that part of the process to the other rescue organisation.

Under these new criteria, the numbers have crept up slightly, and we’re currently helping and housing ±20 dogs between the hospital and shelter.

On the cat side

On the cat side of the shelter, Paulette found the dire need was for adult cats and those with some medical or emotional/behaviour issues. The kittens were easy to home, but finding homes for adult cats is much more difficult. Many of the other rescue organisations would take in mommy cats with kittens but the adult cats were turned away. So, Paulette decided to focus her energy on this need – and not just rehoming but also rehabilitating adult cats that had had a difficult start, had medical challenges, or had been in tough home situations. This side of the shelter doesn’t rely on expenses like dog walkers and requires limited contact with other people.

The real work is the daily housekeeping around the cats with feeding, giving medication (which can be a struggle), laundry and infection control (especially for the sick cats), litter trays (up to 60 a day), etc. The challenge is also finding them homes, as not everyone wants to adopt an adult or senior cat or one with issues, and it’s hard to get the cats seen.

Sadly, Covid has meant even more cats have been surrendered and some returned due to financial constraints and people emigrating. Although we had a lot of adult cat homings at the start of the pandemic (close to 30 cats), the number of adoptions has dropped again, and our numbers have grown. The shelter is stretched to its capacity with the cats, and we currently have ±100 wonderful adult cats ready for new homes.

You can help!

OUR WISHLIST:

DOGS

1. FLEA CONTROL AND DEWORMERS – It’s very important for our dogs to be routinely deflead and dewormed. We use Simparica for our dogs – it kills fleas and ticks and lasts for up to five weeks; we use Prazifen as our dewormer of choice.

2. WOOD CHIPS – Our doggies have wood chips laid down in the garden, which is much easier to maintain than a lawn as the urine kills the grass.

3. DRY BEDS – These are special beds that keep nice and dry on top if a stray happens to have an accident in their cage.

4. HOUND SLEEPER BEDS (medium or large) or covers (black).

5. HOOVES – Each of our doggies has a hoof in their cage to chew. They especially enjoy the smoked hooves. Occasionally, we stuff the hooves with tasty wet food, put them in the freezer, and then it’s an amazing longer-lasting, tastier hoofie.

6. TREATS – Besides the hooves in their cages, we also give our stray doggies something delicious to chew at night. Any sort of ostrich-based treat as it has a low chance of causing tummy upsets (e.g. ostrich necks, sinew trimmings or ostrich flat sinews). We also have BIG chewers, so we give them longer-lasting treats (e.g. raw marrow bones, pizzle sticks and achilles).

CATS

1. DARO SCRATCH BLOCK – It’s very important for kitties to scratch their claws; it helps to keep them trimmed but also provides exercise and stimulation for the kitty. Each of our cats in cages have their own scratch blocks, as well as each cattery having several larger scratch blocks available.

2. SHEEPSKIN BEDS – Some of our cats are very specific about their beds! Sheepskin beds are preferred by many. We use the smaller size in cages and larger ones in the communal catteries.

3. CAT LITTER – WOOD LITTER for the inside cats. We go through 2-3 bags (14kg bags) of wood litter per day. We also need SAND LITTER for the catio.

4. CATNIP PLANTS and cat grass – Fun way to keep our cats entertained.

5. PURPLE BLANKETS – We use purple blankets for the cats to differentiate them from the dogs’ blankets, so we can ensure the blanket doesn’t smell like dogs (especially important for timid kitties).

6. WET FOOD – Petleys or Pampers Tins.

7. CAT TOYS.

8. FLEA CONTROL WITH DEWORMER – Just like our dogs, the cats also need to be routinely treated to prevent fleas, ticks and worms. We use a product called BROADLINE, which is a flea-and-tick control that has a dewormer in it as well. This means we don’t have to stress our cats out twice by having to deworm them with a tablet – it can be done once and they hardly notice. For more difficult cats we use Bravecto with the dewormer in it as it lasts for three months.

SHELTER STAFF & BEHIND THE SCENES

- GROCERIES – Coffee, tea, sugar, Energade for staff.

- CLEANING PRODUCTS – Twist mops, outdoor broom, Sunlight dishwashing liquid, Sunlight automatic washing machine liquid, Bactoclean, Oragnoclean (we use these to disinfect the shelter), pegs.

- AIRTIME for PlumPets’s phone – 083 641 3535 (MTN).

- BOOKS in good condition for our second-hand bookstall.

- LARGE EMPTY DOG/CAT FOOD BAGS or cat litter bags (8kg or larger).

- SHOPPING BAGS, bread bags and fruit and vegetable bags.

SERVICES

1. ELECTRICITY – You can do an EFT into our bank account with the reference “Electricity”. We buy a large amount (R1,900 every month) to get a cheaper rate.

2. ELECTRIC FENCING – We have electric fencing around the perimeter of a section of our property. This is for various reasons, but one is to keep neighbourhood cats out and to keep our indoor/outdoor kitties in the property. We pay a monthly fee of R783.71 for the electric fencing.

3. PHYSIOTHERAPHY – Sponsor towards physiotherapy for our strays, Indi and Zizi, who have their treatments twice a week at R4,900 per x10 sessions.

4. TREE FELLER – We have trees in our garden that desperately need to be trimmed of large branches twice a year. The branches interfere with the electric fencing and sometimes give too much shade in winter. We’d also need the branches taken away and disposed of. If you know anyone who can sponsor this or donate their services, it would be very much appreciated!

5. PLUMPETS VEHICLE – We have a very reasonable mechanic on hand, but daily running costs and wear and tear (e.g. licence, petrol, rust removal, etc.) could benefit with sponsorship. Anyone willing to donate their services would also be appreciated.

6. GARDEN SERVICE – We have a walk-in catio area at the front of the shelter that could use a quarterly garden service to replenish and replace items and plants.

We rely heavily on donations and every Rand helps us continue to save and change lives for the better. Every little bit helps! We have three options for making donations:

EFT

Account Name: PlumPets
Bank: Nedbank
Branch: Constantia
Branch Code: 101109
Account Number: 1055 794 581
Account Type: Current
[Universal bank code: 198 765 (if the branch code is not recognised)]

MONTHLY DEBIT ORDER

We’re always desperate for funds and rely on our community for support. Consider signing up for a monthly debit order for any amount you’re able to donate to help us save more lives!

To sign up, visit www.plumpets.org/debit-order or email plumpetsanimalshelter@gmail.com

SNAPSCAN

Download SnapScan on the Apple or Android Play Store for free, scan the following QR code, and donate! It’s that easy!

MYSCHOOL CARD

You can also add PlumPets as a beneficiary on your MySchool Card and swipe your card every time you shop at Woolworths, Builders Warehouse or other participating stores.

Sign up for a MySchool Card and choose PlumPets as your beneficiary. If you already have a MySchool Card, you can change your beneficiary to PlumPets by email, SMS or phone call.

SMS “join PlumPets” to 31231.

Or sign up online at www.myschool.co.za/supporter/apply

You can also contact them via email or telephone:

Email: cs@myschool.co.za

Telephone: 0860 100 445

You can swipe your MySchool Card at Builders Warehouse, Woolworths, Loot.co.za, Engen, Netstar, Worksheetcloud, Power24.co.za and many more.

For more information, contact Paulette via WhatsApp on 083 641 3535, visit www.plumpets.org or follow us on Facebook www.facebook.com/PlumPets.