top of page

Pictures of Negev dogs

War update:
Dogs from Gaza, February 2024

About 5,000 dogs entered the west part of the Negev, from Gaza, since there is no fence.

The Agriculture Ministry warns not to adopt dogs without permission and veterinary check ups. In any case, there are few homes and again the Negev has huge number of dogs, without a sterilization plan . There is not enough space in the shelters, dog pounds, there are few foster homes and very few adoptions in Israel. 

 

The Israeli government's attitude is to ignore the problem, while allowing the Agriculture Ministry to shoot the dogs.(This Ministry actually receives a budget from the government to do this)

Animals rescuers have little or no funding, they are overwhelmed by the large number of dogs. The stray dogs are hungry and many are injured from the war, from accidents and abuse in Arab villages. The rescuers have to pay veterinary bills with money they do not have. 

The dog crisis in the Negev region

A Rescuer from this region told me the bitter truth about the dog crisis in the Negev. I translated below and also added information from research and articles I read.

Introduction

Dogs wandering in the Negev; this is a problem that started years ago. The Israeli government ignores this problem, they do not allocate funds to help the dogs. This is why the problem has reached catastrophic proportions. Tens of thousands of dogs are wandering in the Negev. The Negev is a large region that includes the Bedouin areas, cities in the Negev: Arad, Dimona, Beersheva, Yeruham & Mizpah Ramon.

Reproduction

The problem is the dogs reproduce quickly. Every female Canaanite dog gives birth twice or three times a year; ten or twelve puppies each time. This means that only one female dog will have from 20 to 36 puppies in one year. She gives birth in the desert and the puppies themselves grow up to be wondering dogs, with a very difficult life. They suffer from starvation, injuries, illnesses, and abuse by the Bedouin population.

 

Sick dogs, Dog Kennels, Bediouns

Then they are injured, or sick or get runover no one looks after them. Most of the Negev dogs fear humans, so it’s very difficult to catch them. Sometimes we see an injured or sick dog, but we cannot help the dog, because we are unable to catch the dog. The fear is deep routed in them to fear humans because often Bedouins do bad things to them. Recently Bedouins poisoned dogs. But even if we succeeded in catching these dogs, the problem is there is nowhere to take them. The kennels in the cities Beersheva and Arad are completely full, so are the kennels in other towns. When more and more dogs are brought to these kennels, they have no choice but to Euthanize healthy dogs, because there is no place to put them.

 

There are few adoptions. In Israel there are more dogs than families who want to adopt dogs. Whoever loves dogs already has one or two at home. There are simply too many dogs in Israel, and the government does nothing to help. They do not give money to sterilize the dogs, they do not increase the size of the kennels; so there will be space for more dogs, they do not pay medical expenses for these dogs. So, the few volunteers are collapsing under pressure; the veterinarian expenses are extremely high.

 

Cats, sterilization 

The same problem occurs with cats. In Israel there are millions of street cats not only in the Negev but all over Israel; in the cities, in small communities and open spaces. The government understood there is a problem with cats. They allocated a budget for a program called “Sterilize and Return”, this means they sterilize a female cat or castrate a male cat and then release them back to the streets. (They are returned to the streets because people won’t adopt the cats.)

By implementing this program, the cats are sterilized and won’t continue to reproduce. The Israeli government refuses to not do this with dogs. It is illegal in Israel to “sterilize and return” stray dogs.

Their solution is to simply ignore the problem and let the dogs reproduce and live in horrific conditions.

 

A year ago, a Knesset member tried to pass a bill to sterilize stray dogs, but it was rejected. The religious Knesset members object all the time. They do not want to allocate funds for dogs. So now volunteers need to take the dogs to vets, to sterilize them but it is extremely expensive, and they cannot afford it.

 

*In English the term ‘Sterilize and Return’ is called ‘Trap-Neuter-Release’.

Anchor 1

Breeders are part of the problem

According to Knesset research from the year 2000, pirate puppy mills breed tens of thousands of dogs

for sale, often in shocking conditions that violate animal welfare laws. The Israelis government is not against dog breeders but they want them to have permits.

 

The Dog crisis in Israel is caused by a huge number of stray dogs, few adoptions, breeders and also many families who adopted dogs return them to the shelters. 

 

Dog breeders have money and they hire lawyers to fight their cause.  A few weeks ago, the breeders sued an Israeli TV station that advertised and encouraged adopting stray dogs. The breeders do not want Israelis to adopt from shelters, but to buy dogs from them. More information can be found in this link, from The Times of Israel and there is an article in Hebrew below. 

Extreme neglect by the Israeli government

The Israeli government does allocated a small budget to rescue animals, but they do not take into account the huge numbers of stray dogs and cats in Israel. Instead of sterilizing dogs, they resort to inhumane behavior such as Shooting dogs or Euthanizing them. In the year 2022 they killed more than 2,000 dogs. Having large stray dog population is dangerous, packs of dogs attack Bedouins in southern Israel. They in turn try to harm the dogs. It all starts with the Israeli government's attitude; they view the Negev region as unimportant compared with the central region. If there were packs of dogs living near Tel-Aviv, they would sterilize them. Also puppies would not be living in landfills.

The rescuers in the Negev region are tirelessly working and trying to save dogs, puppies, cats and kittens but they cannot do it on their own, without the help of the Israeli government.  

ABANDONED DOGS

ISRAEL 2021, "There is scotching heat outside and these are the wandering dogs in Israel. There is no solution insight. The situation is out of control, especially on the outskirts of cities.

We came up with a plan to deal with this crisis, but government officials from the Agriculture Ministry will not meet with us. City administrations are unwilling to deal with this challenge of thousands of dogs who ‘flood’ cities and their outskirts. We are posting this video to help people become aware of the problem. Please share the video." ISRAEL SPCA

Please sign this petition to prevent shooting & poisonings of stray dogs in the Negev. Many of these dogs escaped the war zone in Gaza and entered Israel. They deserve to live and be protected. 

Let Animals Live Israel explains in Hebrew, with English subtitles. 


 

קישורים למאמרים בעברית

"משמידים עשרות אלפי חיות בר ויורים בכלבים": מצבם העגום של בעלי החיים בישראל

© 2035 by Animal Shelter. Powered and secured by Wix

In case of emergency, contact the shelters or volunteers in Israel directly. 
This site only provides information.

bottom of page