COVID 19 EMERGENCY - Support to “Fondazione Prelz Onlus” for the supply of food and the Provision of Medical-Veterinary Care for the Animals Hosted in the Kennel in Campagnano Romano, Rome

Project location: Italy, Campagnano Romano
Project start date: April 2020 - Project end date: May 2020
Project number: 2020-012
Beneficiary: Fondazione Prelz Onlus

Prelz Onlus Foundation is an animal rights association founded in 2003 that deals with assistance and hospitalization of abandoned dogs. Its headquarters is in Campagnano di Roma, where the kennel is built in an area of ten hectares. Under normal circumstances, the kennel houses an average of 150 dogs, both abandoned puppies and dogs in need of care because they are injured or sick. The animals are cared for, rehabilitated and sterilized by the Prelz Foundation and once they are rehabilitated (or weaned in the case of puppies), the Foundation does everything it can to find a good adoption. The Foundation also has a veterinary surgical room.

The objective of the Prelz Foundation is to collaborate not only with animal welfare associations, but also with municipalities and local health authorities in order to sterilize as many stray animals as possible, using the mobile operating room if necessary. The ultimate goal is to defeat the stray-dogs issue, which has now become a real social scourge, and to transmit to future generations a code of conduct that restores the correct coexistence between humans and animals.

The Nando and Elsa Peretti Foundation - Italy has awarded a grant to the Prelz Foundation for an ongoing project for the custody and care of the dogs of the former Tolfa kennel.

Following the pandemic, with the interruption of paid pensions for dogs, the Foundation is in serious economic difficulty. Three people from their staff are now under the government's redundancy fund (a kennel worker, a nurse, a dog educator).

The primary need for food, water, safe living conditions and daily therapies for the 92 dogs and 30 stray cats guests of the kennel is still guaranteed daily, with great difficulties.
In addition to a drastic reduction in revenue, during this pandemic the number of abandoned cats and dogs has increased. The Prelz Foundation welcomes them, then after cleaning and de-worming them, it sterilizes the females (covering all the costs) in order to stop the possibility of breeding.
Of course, during this period of quarantine it is not possible to relocate the animals for adoption. There are also people, mostly older people, who have financial difficulties and turn to the Prelz Foundation for the care and help of their animals.

To cope with this emergency and to guarantee food and care for the animals hosted in the kennel, the Nando and Elsa Peretti Foundation has awarded a grant , that will cover for a 30-day period:

• Purchase of normal and specific food for sick animals or those in need of particular dietary regimes
• Medicines, surgical material for the veterinary clinic + reagents for the analysis for the animals housed in the kennel
• One day of free sterilization for stray cats and dogs