Afghan Stray Animal League

This is Blackie, a sweet little female hound who was brought to our shelter from the streets in May. Her ears had been cut off and her hind leg was badly mangled and infected from being hit by a car. We thought she would not survive, but a good friend of ours who is a surgeon volunteered to operate on her leg. He successfuly amputated it with the entire staff watching, all the infection was removed, and Blackie recovered quickly. The leg healed very well, and within several weeks she was running and hopping around like a puppy.

After an appeal went out, a number of friends helped raise the money to bring Blackie to the USA, especially Cora and Brian and Maria. She made the journey in September and is currently being fostered by Mike and Melinda in Washington, D.C., while her adoptive family gets ready to move to move to a house with a big back yard. Blackie, now renamed Gracie, is so full of joy and energy that she needs lots of space to romp around and express herself.

Maya needs a home! She came to the States last winter and was adopted by a family in Maryland. She is about a year old now, extremely affectionate, healthy and spayed. But she is also very busy, energetic and full of beans. She needs a large outdoor space to run in every day, preferably with another energetic dog who can help wear her out. We are trying to find her a new home that can accommodate this indefatigable bundle of love and life. Please contact if you can help.

During winter, which is extremely cold in Kabul, the warmest place in the shelter is the woodstove in the front hall. Puppies all sleep indoors at night during winter, and several of them compete for space under the woodstove every night. This little guy is one of a litter of puppies rescued by some American soldiers near their base and sent to us in Kabul. He is still too young for adoption, but meanwhile he is very much enjoying his favorite spot under the stove.

Naranji, which means orange-colored, is a sweet marmalade cat who was rescued by a friend and brought to the shelter this winter. The friend hoped to take her to Europe but was not able to do so. Now Naranji is living with two other cats in a large play-cage at the Kabul shelter. She is safe and warm and healthy, but she would much rather be playing ping-pong or sitting on someone's lap in front of a fire. Every time we enter the cage to feed or clean the cats, she immediately tries to climb up our legs and into our arms. A clearer message she could not be sending.

Shep is a blind German shepherd puppy who was brought to Tigger House in the winter of 2008. He was very thin and unhappy. He kept wandering forlornly around the outdoor pen, bumping in to other, faster dogs who always beat him to the dinner bowl. Skitters is a tiny dog who was really terrified of people when she reached the shelter and also could not compete with the larger dogs in the outside pen. In February we brought them both inside the shelter, where they decided to make a suitcase into their bed. Skitters gradually overcame her fear of humans after some intense TLC, and Shep grew more confident of his surroundings.

During the summer we launched a campaign to find them homes and raise the money to bring them to the USA. Through the hard work and generosity of our good friends Cora and Brian Hellings, as well as others, we were able to raise the money. Cora also told us about a wonderful place called Rolling Dog Ranch in Montana for blind animals. We got in touch with the owners and they decided to adopt Shep and help pay for his trip. In June I brought both Shep and Skitters back to the States. Shep went to live in Montana, and you can learn all about his new life by logging on to www.rollingdogranch.com. Skitters went to live with Cora and Brian in Washington State, where she is now part of a happy family. Thank you so much to everyone who made their journey and new life possible.

YELLOW TOM, a brave and battered male alley cat, was found by a Danish aid worker and brought to the shelter in the summer of 2006, nearly dead from fight wounds, starvation and respiratory disease. With months of veterinary care and a lot of TLC, he gradually regained his strength, his wounds healed and he began to put on weight. At first he had no idea how to show affection, so when we opened his cage to feed and care for him, he would clamp down lightly on our hands with his teeth and not let go. It was his way of saying thanks.

Yellow Tom finally became healthy enough to leave the shelter. He was neutered by Dr. Rahmatullah and then adopted by several Americans living in Kabul. They took great care of him for more than six months, but in June he began to go downhill again. In early July the staff took him to an American vet who was working as a consultant with the national veterinary school. He said Tom was suffering from many serious chronic ailments, including liver disease, and was near the end of his life. The American vet, Dr. Hodgson, and Dr. Rahmatullah did their best to save Tom, but he did not make it. Tom died peacefully today at the home of his adopters in Kabul and was buried in a flower bed in their yard. We will all miss him terribly, but we are also grateful that he came to us, that he found a loving home, and that he was able to spend his final months in peace, comfort and safety after a very hard life as a homeless fighting tom on the streets of Kabul. July 7, 2007.

Se Pai, which means Three Legs, is a small gray cat who came to us from the streets with a wounded back leg. It is now totally healed and she hops around on three legs like a pro. Smoke is one of two kittens who were rescued by a friend in Herat and sent to us in Kabul in a home-made wooden box. The friend was not able to catch their Mom at first but eventually he did, and she was also sent to Kabul to be reunited with her two kittens. Sadly the other kitten died of an infection shortly after the reunion, but Smoke continues to thrive. His favorite activity is climbing up the wire mesh to the very top of his play cage, which is about seven feet high. We hope to send Smoke and his Mom home eventually with their rescuer.

Genghis was a bedraggled, elderly cat with one eye and very few teeth left when she was brought to the shelter more than one year ago. Despite her infirmities, she had a winsome personality and a melodic, chirpy miaow to welcome all regular visitors. A woman who worked for the UN fell in love with her, gave her the incongruous name of Genghis, and took her home as a companion. Eventually Jacky was transferred to Italy and then to Ghana. She left Genghis in our care but never forgot her. In fact, her strong determination to be reunited with Genghis created a huge electronic paper trail, with many dozens of emails bouncing around the globe as various people, eventually known as The Genghis Team, plotted complicated ways to arrange it all. Finally, in mid-August of this year, Genghis flew to Pakistan, Dubai and then on to Accra, where Jacky was waiting anxiously. We managed to reach her on a cell phone in Accra while she was at the airport, and she called back just as Genghis was coming out of customs. There it was on the phone -- that melodic, chirpy miaow of welcome, although this time with a bit more peremptory tone. Congratulations on the happy mission accomplished to Genghis, Jacky and the Global Genghis Team.

One of the most special dogs we helped after the shelter opened in 2004 was Nelson, a badly disabled and weakened black and white spaniel-style dog who could barely walk because of infant vitamin deficiency and was also blind in one eye. Nelson was found on the streets of Kabul and spent nearly a year at the shelter, where we gave him lots of vitamins and care, but we despaired of finding him a home. Everyone who visited us loved Nelson’s sweet and intrepid personality, and some friends led by Julia deBold, an American physician’s assistant stationed in Kabul, gradually raised enough funds to send him to the States.

Fortunately, we found a wonderful woman in southwest Oregon named Michelle Parris who kept abused and abandoned dogs and other animals on her small farm, called Grateful Dogs Rescue. In the spring of 2006 we sent Nelson to Oregon, where he became part of Michelle’s amazing rescued pack that included dachsunds and Saint Bernards, two llamas, a pony and a donkey, goats and a pig. Nelson grew stronger and more confident in his surroundings, and he is now able to keep up with the others on daily walks through the wooded hills of Michelle’s sanctuary. The photos here show Nelson at the shelter in Kabul and later in Oregon with Michelle and the other members of her pack.

BANDI-AMIR was found by an Afghan friend in 2006, drowning in a filthy drainage ditch in Kabul where some boys were tormenting him. The friend fished him out of the ditch and brought him to the shelter, covered with slime and shivering with cold. After several baths, blow-dries and lots of powdered puppy formula, he looked like a brand new puppy. We named him after a famous clear blue lake in north central Afghanistan. He was adopted several months later.

A group of American soldiers on patrol in the summer of 2006 found a group of Afghan boys tormenting a black and white puppy, which unfortunately is a common sight. They were trying to hack off its ears with a knife, which is often done to Afghan dogs in the belief that it will make them more aggressive in fights. The soldiers rescued Charlie from the boys and took him to their base in Kabul, where a military veterinarian named Captain Jones called us to come get him.

One of Charlie’s ears was hanging by a thread, but Dr. Rahmatullah was able to reattach the ear with sutures, and miraculously it healed and did not become infected. This was one of the most successful rescues and recoveries we had that year, and it showed us what was possible to accomplish even though we still do not have sophisticated medical equipment or diagnostic tools. Charlie became a healthy and happy puppy, and he was adopted by another American soldier. The photo at left shows Charlie as he came to the shelter, with one ear badly wounded. The photo on the home page shows Charlie just two weeks later when his ear was on the way to full recovery.

We started out helping stray animals in Kabul in early 2002, when there were virtually no veterinary services and no shelters at all in the country, after nearly three decades of war and destruction. One of the first was Mr. Stumpy, a filthy, scared and irascible alley cat whose hind leg was crushed when he was hit by a car. We were able to persuade am Afghan vet who worked with imported land-mine sniffer dogs to amputate his leg, but a few days later he escaped from a car into the streets. When we finally found him again, his surgical wound was black and infected. It took more than a month of excruciating daily bandage changes, but Mr. Stumpy survived and recovered. A US army reserve vet, Trudy Salerno, vaccinated him for rabies and distemper. Over time he stopped clawing everyone and became a happy, sociable cat.

Through friends of friends, we found someone willing to adopt him in the states, and in the summer of 2004, Mr. Stumpy went to live with Bryan Wockley in Vermont, where he learned to climb tall trees on three legs and his signature, insistent miaow became known to all. Mr. Stumpy now lives with Bryan and his family in the Washington, DC, area, and he was a special guest at our annual summer barbecue in Arlington to raise funds for the Kabul shelter. The photos here show Mr. Stumpy in Kabul just after his amputation, and three years later with Bryan and his family in the States.

This puppy and kitten were both found on the Kabul streets the same week last November. The kitten was shivering and had pneumonia. The puppy had a bad intestinal infection and was very sick. They spent about two weeks together in the sun room, both getting intensive treatment. They spent much of their time together inside this furry hideaway that was donated to the shelter. Sadly, the kitten never recovered from her illness and died. The puppy got well and is now running around the compound in a mini-pack with the other small dogs, learning to pose soulfully whenever potential adopters come by to browse.

Tazis are sleek, silent and graceful dogs which were once bred for hunting and retrieving game in Afghanistan. It is very rare to find one now, especially wandering in the streets, but that is where we found this beautiful and majestic dog last fall. She has now become a long-term resident of the shelter, where she spends much of her time lying in the sun on the front porch. We have never heard her bark.

Jena is a small, sweet, amber-colored hound, about 2 years old, who was rescued under harrowing conditions in November from the worst conflict zone in southern Afghanistan. A British Marine named Pen Farthing, who is also an animal lover, was sent to fight there, and Jena was one of several dogs who lived near his base camp in the desert. The base in rural Helmand Province was under constant Taliban attack, and the dogs also faced danger from Afghan soldiers and other men who goaded them to fight for sport. Jena gave birth to eight puppies, and Pen sheltered them the best he could, along with the other camp dogs. When the time came for Pen’s unit to be evacuated, he was frantic to save her and the others, but had no way to do so, since he would be evacuated by military helicopter.

We learned about this situation from Pen’s wife Lisa, who was in London and found out about our work in Kabul through the Mayhew Animal Home and the Humane Society International. She explained Pen’s urgent need to save the dogs. I arranged with a local contact to send an Afghan cargo truck and driver to the area of Pen’s camp in hopes of rescuing the dogs. There was no phone communication with the camp, and we did not even know exactly where it was, but Pen sent Lisa the best directions he could, and she and I spoke repeatedly by phone. We made a complicated plan to have the driver approach the base with a white sign bearing Pen’s name, fearing every moment that Pen would be suddenly evacuated or that there would be another Taliban attack.

The cargo driver returned to Kandahar several days later with no dogs, saying he had been stopped at a Taliban checkpost in the desert and forced to turn back. We despaired of saving them, but Pen was finally able to move Jena and the other dogs to a larger, safer base near a town. A week later, we arranged to send another cargo truck to approach the second base, and after two tries, the driver and Pen found each other. Jena and the other dogs were loaded into the truck and driven to Kandahar, then to Kabul – a long, expensive and dangerous trip that took many hours.

When Jena finally reached Kabul, she was emaciated and trembling, and many of her puppies were missing. We do not know what became of them. She and several other dogs from Helmand remained at the shelter for several months, growing fatter and healthier, but Jena was very shy and still trembled a lot. She shared a large pen with another Helmand dog named Tali, and her two remaining puppies. Meanwhile Pen’s unit was evcauated from Afghanistan and he returned to London, where he began raising money to bring the dogs out of the country. Tali and another dog named Nawzad were to go to London, which required a huge amount of paperwork, complex medical procedures and six months in quarantine. I was worried that this would be too much for Jena, so I said I wanted to bring her to the States instead and find her a home there.

After many delays, Jena flew to the US in mid-June. She was fostered at first by Mike and Melinda Beard in Washington, D.C., where she enjoyed the company of Snowball, a rambunctious labrador-type puppy who also came from the Kabul shelter. She stopped trembling and became extremely affectionate, following people around and waiting for the chance to rest her head on their laps. I think she was making up for so many months of fear and hardship. After a short July vacation on the eastern shore of Virginia, Jena was adopted by a very nice couple in Washington, and she immediately curled up in an armchair by the fire place. A well-deserved home-coming for a very sweet dog.