How to open a shelter for homeless animals and how much does it cost?

In urban environments, stray animals often become a big problem, which enterprising, socially active people help solve. How to open a shelter for homeless animals and how much does it cost? Step-by-step instructions offer an action plan with financial calculations.

The business of fostering stray dogs and cats cannot be super profitable. For a businessman who decides to launch such a difficult project, the main concern will be creating conditions for comfortable living for animals. Additional types of services can generate income - a hotel, a veterinary pharmacy, a clinic.

Kind of activity

Before opening an animal shelter, you should decide what services it will provide. Since the shelter itself makes virtually no profit and is maintained at the expense of concerned citizens and sponsors, the opportunity to earn money on your own will not be superfluous.

At the shelter you can open:

veterinary clinic;
hotel for animals;
cynological courses;
grooming and so on.

All commercial activities must be carried out in parallel with the direct responsibilities of the organization, which include providing animals with:

housing;
food;
treatment;
vaccinations;
sterilization;
searching for the owner.

If desired, as, for example, many animal shelters in Moscow do, you can organize the capture of stray pets.

Fanaticism at someone else's expense

But the biggest success for the shelter is not the money of the donors, but the funds from the municipal budget. But, having received impressive sums, some are in no hurry to part with them. Of course, they keep animals, but under what conditions! A few years ago, a scandal broke out with the ECO Veshnyaki shelter, in which animals died en masse due to being kept in inhumane conditions.

By the way, as a result, it turned out that the management company of this and several other Moscow shelters, the charitable autonomous non-profit organization (BANO) "ECO", together with the veterinary (chipping and sterilization of stray animals) took no less than a billion rubles from the Moscow budget! After the scandal, all city contracts with them were terminated.

It should be noted here that today municipal shelters, for example, in Moscow, look more serious and thorough than many of their private “colleagues”. Municipal organizations have their own official websites, pages on social networks, they are staffed by full-time veterinarians and even have isolation wards for sick animals. In terms of information, they are much more open than private shelters, and, without a doubt, do not participate in fraudulent schemes.

Attackers have long learned to make money not only from treatment or budget money. The already mentioned offers to “home” your dog, which you are forced to refuse for some reason, may turn out to be a death sentence for the animal. They can simply euthanize him, taking money from you for the “device”, or they can give him for “baiting” to fighting dogs (in this case they can take the dog for free).

Another area where scammers are widely deployed is sending animals abroad. For some reason, most people like to send them to Germany. In reality, animals can simply be thrown out in the nearest forest, receiving about 30 thousand rubles for transportation. It could be even worse: the dogs will actually be sent to Germany, but for testing. However, not only volunteers are guilty of this: in Ufa in 2013 there was a high-profile case when a certain Tulupov’s comrades collected dogs from animal rights activists under the pretext of adopting them into a family, and he himself transferred them to the Research Institute of Applied Chemistry, where the dogs were used to test mines and other explosives substances.

Ax for a kitten. Why is the number of flayers growing in Russia? More details

Finding funds

Regardless of the choice of operating a shelter, opening it requires a starting amount, and a considerable one at that. During the construction and organizing stages, ordinary citizens rarely donate their funds, complaining about the dishonesty of others. You can start construction from your own funds, if you have a sufficient amount at your disposal, or you can involve famous personalities, local politicians or other wealthy citizens in the problem as sponsors of charitable activities.

Many people are interested in how to open an animal shelter with government support. This can be done simply by contacting local authorities with the appropriate request, but the municipal shelter option will always be far from ideal maintenance. The fact is that the source of its financing is the state, which allocates too little funds for the normal maintenance of animals.

Employees

— The house is in the suburbs. At a decent distance from the city. It seems to me that this is a huge inconvenience with food delivery at a minimum. Plus you have several people working there. How do they get there?

Yes, this is a colossal inconvenience, but I no longer had a choice. All other options are even further away. So I finally settled on it. And employees are a separate big problem.

- What is it?

You see, people who love them with all their hearts are able to work with so many animals. At the moment, I have 5 people working there in shifts. Two daily workers and a changing day shift.

That is, every day there is one daily worker and one more person - from 8 to 18. The amount of work for two allows you to relax and not initially strain yourself. But despite this, situations of unfair treatment arise over and over again.

- What do you mean?

They did not report in time that the dog or one of the cats was sick. Instead of feeding them twice a day, they fed the animals once, citing the fact that the driver brought the food late. They allowed a serious fight between the dogs when they did not keep track and did not close the doors of one of the enclosures. Yes, there are many examples. The worst thing is that I have to put up with this.

You just can’t imagine how difficult it is to find people who are willing to travel so far from the city. And don’t approach the locals at all. They, the rural residents, have a consumerist attitude towards animals. There we are not talking about full-fledged care and care at all. And this despite the fact that I pay people a salary 2 times higher than the city average.

Editorial opinion

Elena Kalita

Magazine editor

To help creatures who have been betrayed, abandoned, left to perish, you need to have a truly big soul and a loving heart. Attitudes towards animals and actions towards them, like a mirror, show what a person really is.

Team selection

Before opening an animal shelter, even if there is already money for this, you need to select the future staff of the organization. In any case, one person cannot cope with all the responsibilities, and for animals it is important to be loved and understood, especially for those who have already experienced betrayal. All shelter workers should treat their residents warmly, regardless of their position.

Usually the shelter staff always has:

manager;
vet;
veterinary assistants;
employees providing day-to-day care for animals;
people cleaning premises after animals;
night watchmen.

Also, depending on the extent of the activity, the staff may include a dog handler, a driver, a person who catches animals from the street, and so on.

Selfless option

For a municipal shelter, a non-profit form is best. It implies a ban on commercial activities on the territory of the organization, but at the same time expands the opportunities for receiving various benefits from the state. Animal shelters in Moscow operating under this system receive subsidies, pay reduced taxes and receive additional funding from charitable donations. Unfortunately, this form of organization will pay for itself only after ten years, given that 80% of the incoming funds should be spent exclusively on the needs of the shelter.

Whoever found it gets the cat

Compared to such horrors, other types of animal fraud seem simply harmless. For example, with lost animals. Not everyone knows that according to the law, a veterinary passport is not sufficient proof that the animal is yours; notarization of ownership is required. This is taken advantage of by those who, having found an animal, begin to blackmail the owners. Yes, the law allows payment of a reward to the finder in the amount of 20% of the value of the animal. But some “animal defenders” are beginning to demand money from owners for allegedly expensive treatment. They can simply blackmail. Or they even avoid returning altogether, starting to make money from the animal using one of the methods described above. And you cannot pick up an animal without a notarized title.

The sale of outbred puppies and kittens under the guise of purebred ones is generally a classic. Sellers at the Bird Market in Moscow practiced this back in the days when the market was located in the city center. Now the scam has an improved version: they can present you with a purebred mother with medals and a bunch of certificates. But your shepherd may never grow up, and your sphinx cat may just end up shaved.

What to do? There is a lot of advice on this matter on the Internet: give money only to trusted funds and shelters, and even better - offer food, bedding, and medicine. Real volunteers will definitely have financial reports on the funds spent, photos and videos of animals, including live broadcast.

However, it is worth recognizing: in the field of private animal shelters today there are so many unscrupulous people that animal rights activists themselves should be interested in putting things in order here. Otherwise, the good deed will be completely discredited. And Bobik and Barsik will suffer from this again.

Additional profit

How to open an animal shelter that will bring in money or at least recoup its investment in a short time? To do this, it is legally necessary to immediately register the organization as a commercial one. This form allows for the provision of additional paid services on the territory of the shelter. The list of such services is not limited in any way, since the amount for paying salaries to employees does not have a clear framework.

Such a shelter can support itself by receiving money:

from providing veterinary care to pets;
cosmetic procedures for animals;
conducting cynological courses and so on.

Commercial organizations do not receive funding from the state and do not have any benefits.

In fact, the question of how to open an animal shelter in Russia is very complex, and few people can cope without legal assistance from a specialist in the correct registration of the organization and its further maintenance. If you want to really help our little brothers and preserve the shelter for many years, you should have a personal legal consultant who can defend the interests of the charitable organization in any situation.

Useful contacts

At the same time as searching for helpers, you need to establish relationships with other caring people. You will need veterinary clinics, hotels for dogs, animal protection organizations in your region (services, funds) or simply caring activists who, for a number of reasons, do not want to help you and your shelter, but do everything themselves, maybe. permanent zoos. Moreover, it is better to know not citywide telephone numbers and addresses, but to be in relationships with specific key people. This question is one of the most difficult.

There are a huge number of different points of view among animal rights activists and animal-oriented organizations. All people are not indifferent, they fight for their point of view and will not compromise until they definitely see the benefits for themselves or their animals. This greatly complicates interactions with “colleagues.”

Commercial organizations (veterinary clinics) will also not be able to provide full-fledged help to the shelter - as a rule, they themselves are the first to suffer from the excess of adopted animals, because their location is known to everyone! However, it is very advisable to know how “dog people” live in your region. This will allow us to combine efforts on fundamental issues (open a citywide shelter by uniting several, write a letter to the governor asking for help, broadcast a detailed report (article in a newspaper) about the state of the problem of homeless animals).

Choosing a suitable location

The main rule that you should know before opening an animal shelter is that it should be located no closer than 300 meters from the nearest residential building. You should also pay attention to the area of the territory, which ideally should be at least a hectare of land with the possibility of organizing a walk for animals. Taking this into account, it is best to choose a place outside the city or in a vacant lot, within a populated area. Land outside the city will cost an order of magnitude cheaper both when purchased and when rented.

Difficulties

— What were your biggest difficulties, besides financial ones?

On the financial side, there were the least difficulties, thanks to the loan and the sale of the apartment. But the most difficult thing was to choose a house in accordance with mandatory sanitary standards for distance from residential buildings. This is where I got tired. There were so many luxurious options in terms of area and cost, but the neighboring houses were very close. This search took me about 8 months.

Cost of necessary facilities

To speed up the installation process of buildings, you can use frame construction, but even without special finishing, this stage will take several million rubles, because heating, water supply, drainage, electrical wiring and much more will be required. An important condition for shelters is hard flooring in the premises and throughout the entire organization to make it easier to monitor cleanliness. This leads to the need for asphalting or concreting, and therefore additional costs. The shelter must also have a perimeter fence at least 2.5 meters high.

Internal division

Most often, dogs and cats are strays, so most premises should be oriented toward them. For hamsters, rats, mice, parrots, turtles and other small pets, it is enough to purchase one stand designed for ten animals. It will be filled in if animals are brought in by unscrupulous owners themselves.

So how do you open an animal shelter from scratch? The construction of the building must take into account the need to separate the premises:

for newly arrived pets;
sick animals;
healthy cats;
healthy dogs;
feed storage;
personnel.

Other premises:

manager's office;
veterinary office;
shower for animals;
crematorium or morgue.

In addition, all sick animals must be sorted by disease and kept separately. New inhabitants are necessarily separated into single cells, from which they are transferred to the others only after bathing, vaccination, and treatment for fleas and helminths.

If animals are fed non-dry food, additional kitchen equipment will be required. Excessive consumption of dry food can cause kidney and urethral diseases.

Showers are essential for regular hygiene of animals, because in an attractive, clean state they are more likely to find a new home. In addition, it is advisable to have cleaning products for pets.

About money

The money is mostly donations. Well, and contributions from volunteers. The curator receives the funds. And this is where the fun begins. There is a constant feud between curators over who gets more donations. They count the money of other curators, who spends what, how much food and medicine cost, and squabble over this.

The feud also stems from animals: a dog with a tragic fate, saved from death, will collect much more money than an ordinary healthy street dog. The animal must be a victim of flayers, suffer all its life and suffer from some terrible disease. One such sick dog can collect several tens of thousands of rubles , especially if it is a plaintive-looking puppy. The more donations he receives, the more money he can quietly take for himself.

Any shelter is a serious business where a lot of money is circulating. I don’t know what kind of schemes there are, so I’ll only say about what I personally encountered - the treatment of animals. Veterinary clinics make very good money treating homeless animals. As a result, any sick animal ends up with them, and doctors undertake to treat the most advanced cases, even when, I am sure, they know for sure that the animal cannot be saved.

Bills at clinics amount to tens of thousands of rubles. Some clinics cooperate with all animal protection organizations in Krasnoyarsk and are willing to “treat” on credit, because animal rights activists provide them with a constant flow of “clients.” I remember cases when we saved dogs from cancer, the dogs died, and then we in groups collected money for a long time to pay off debts to the clinic. And now this is happening too, just go to animal rights groups on social networks.

External premises

Healthy animal facilities are designed for puppies, kittens and cats. Adult dogs are kept outdoors, in kennels or enclosures, in groups. Only aggressive animals, mothers with puppies that have given birth, or lost pets picked up on the street are housed separately. Since dogs are quite active, the area of enclosures should be at least three squares per large individual. If a hotel is organized at the shelter, then such premises should be organized separately from the housing of stray animals, preferably on the opposite side of the territory. And most importantly, all pens must have a ceiling made of at least metal mesh so that pets cannot get out and escape.

Cats can also be kept outdoors in groups, but in special houses. Cats with kittens and aggressive individuals are kept separately.

How everything works

There are volunteers, like I was. These are free workers, so to speak. Volunteers are usually not tied to any specific animal protection organization. There are curators above the volunteers. They coordinate activities, distribute money, monitor the animals they rescue, etc. There are “foster care” - these are people who temporarily keep these animals until they are adopted. “Foster care” is allocated a certain amount per animal per month.

Ideally, the scheme is as follows: a homeless animal is found, examined at a veterinary clinic, treated if necessary, sent for foster care and given into good hands. But treatment and maintenance require money, and this changes everything.

Veterinary office

Equipment of this premises requires an investment of several million rubles, so solving the problem of how to open an animal shelter, where to get money and hire decent employees is not an easy task. The veterinary room should accept all new arrivals, provide assistance to existing pets and, possibly, outside clients.

For high-quality and full-fledged work of a qualified doctor, a hospital should be equipped here in which animals under anesthesia and in the subsequent postoperative period or seriously ill animals will be kept. An operating table, an examination couch, cabinets for medicines, equipment, disinfection and other things must be mandatory.

Purchasing additional equipment

This includes special cages for keeping cats and dogs. As a rule, shelters contain several dozen animals, so the purchase of cages must take into account the possibility of housing each animal separately. Finished products cost about 100 thousand rubles for 4 small cages, which are suitable for both cats and small breed dogs. Large individuals must be kept in small enclosures, the cost of which is within 60 thousand. You can save on purchasing a sufficient number of cells if you purchase them in bulk or hire a caring craftsman to make them.

Cost calculation

So, how much does it cost to open an animal shelter? The total amount amounts to millions, taking into account the hiring of a lawyer, advertising campaigns, and the purchase of feed and other consumables. The biggest costs come from renting premises and land or purchasing them. The construction of a new building, the purchase of equipment and various medicines are also significant in terms of money.

In addition, you should take into account the need to pay employees monthly wages, the average of which is 100 thousand. You will also need to pay utilities, taxes, purchase food for animals, update medications, consumables, and so on.

When opening an animal shelter, you should not count on high profits; sometimes such organizations barely stay afloat and operate at a loss only thanks to the love and compassion of the organizers for animals. If additional paid services are organized on the territory of the shelter, the payback period may be reduced to two years, but during the period of absence of clients it will not be possible to count on help from the state. Don’t be indifferent, if you yourself cannot organize an animal shelter, then try to help existing ones.

How to Open an Animal Shelter: Step-by-Step Guide

Unfortunately, modern people are rarely responsible and kind, so the streets are gradually filled with abandoned and stray animals.
Given such unpleasant circumstances, there are still citizens who show sympathy for lost or abandoned pets.

Each individual person can help several cats or dogs, but for a larger-scale project it is necessary to study in detail the question of how to open a shelter for homeless animals.

At the shelter you can open:

veterinary clinic;
hotel for animals;
cynological courses;
grooming and so on.

All commercial activities must be carried out in parallel with the direct responsibilities of the organization, which include providing animals with:

If desired, as, for example, many animal shelters in Moscow do, you can organize the capture of stray pets.

You can start construction from your own funds, if you have a sufficient amount at your disposal, or you can involve famous personalities, local politicians or other wealthy citizens in the problem as sponsors of charitable activities.

Many people are interested in how to open an animal shelter with government support.

This can be done simply by contacting local authorities with the appropriate request, but the municipal shelter option will always be far from ideal maintenance.

The fact is that the source of its financing is the state, which allocates too little funds for the normal maintenance of animals.

Before opening an animal shelter, even if there is already money for this, you need to select the future staff of the organization.

In any case, one person cannot cope with all the responsibilities, and for animals it is important to be loved and understood, especially for those who have already experienced betrayal.

All shelter workers should treat their residents warmly, regardless of their position.

Usually the shelter staff always has:

manager;
vet;
veterinary assistants;
employees providing day-to-day care for animals;
people cleaning premises after animals;
night watchmen.

Also, depending on the extent of the activity, the staff may include a dog handler, a driver, a person who catches animals from the street, and so on.

So, how to open an animal shelter, where to start, what documents to collect and who to contact? The first step is to visit the local department of public organizations of the city or district and register. You can choose several options for this.

Animal shelters in Moscow operating under this system receive subsidies, pay reduced taxes and receive additional funding from charitable donations.

Unfortunately, this form of organization will pay for itself only after ten years, given that 80% of the incoming funds should be spent exclusively on the needs of the shelter.

How to open an animal shelter that will bring in money or at least recoup its investment in a short time? To do this, it is legally necessary to immediately register the organization as a commercial one.

This form allows for the provision of additional paid services on the territory of the shelter.

The list of such services is not limited in any way, since the amount for paying salaries to employees does not have a clear framework.

Such a shelter can support itself by receiving money:

from providing veterinary care to pets;
cosmetic procedures for animals;
conducting cynological courses and so on.

Commercial organizations do not receive funding from the state and do not have any benefits.

If you want to really help our little brothers and preserve the shelter for many years, you should have a personal legal consultant who can defend the interests of the charitable organization in any situation.

The main rule that you should know before opening an animal shelter is that it should be located no closer than 300 meters from the nearest residential building.

You should also pay attention to the area of the territory, which ideally should be at least a hectare of land with the possibility of organizing a walk for animals. Taking this into account, it is best to choose a place outside the city or in a vacant lot, within a populated area.

Land outside the city will cost an order of magnitude cheaper both when purchased and when rented.

An important condition for shelters is hard flooring in the premises and throughout the entire organization to make it easier to monitor cleanliness. This leads to the need for asphalting or concreting, and therefore additional costs.

The shelter must also have a perimeter fence at least 2.5 meters high.

Most often, dogs and cats are strays, so most premises should be oriented towards them.

For hamsters, rats, mice, parrots, turtles and other small pets, it is enough to purchase one stand designed for ten animals.

It will be filled in if animals are brought in by unscrupulous owners themselves.

So how do you open an animal shelter from scratch? The construction of the building must take into account the need to separate the premises:

for newly arrived pets;
sick animals;
healthy cats;
healthy dogs;
feed storage;
personnel.

manager's office;
veterinary office;
shower for animals;
crematorium or morgue.

If animals are fed non-dry food, additional kitchen equipment will be required. Excessive consumption of dry food can cause kidney and urethral diseases.

Showers are essential for regular hygiene of animals, because in an attractive, clean state they are more likely to find a new home. In addition, it is advisable to have cleaning products for pets.

Healthy animal facilities are designed for puppies, kittens and cats. Adult dogs are kept outdoors, in kennels or enclosures, in groups.

Only aggressive animals, mothers with puppies that have given birth, or lost pets picked up on the street are housed separately.

Since dogs are quite active, the area of enclosures should be at least three squares per large individual.

If a hotel is organized at the shelter, then such premises should be organized separately from the housing of stray animals, preferably on the opposite side of the territory. And most importantly, all pens must have a ceiling made of at least metal mesh so that pets cannot get out and escape.

Cats can also be kept outdoors in groups, but in special houses. Cats with kittens and aggressive individuals are kept separately.

Equipment of this premises requires an investment of several million rubles, so solving the problem of how to open an animal shelter, where to get money and hire decent employees is not an easy task. The veterinary room should accept all new arrivals, provide assistance to existing pets and, possibly, outside clients.

This includes special cages for keeping cats and dogs.

As a rule, shelters contain several dozen animals, so the purchase of cages must take into account the possibility of housing each animal separately.

Finished products cost about 100 thousand rubles for 4 small cages, which are suitable for both cats and small breed dogs.

Large individuals must be kept in small enclosures, the cost of which is within 60 thousand. You can save on purchasing a sufficient number of cells if you purchase them in bulk or hire a caring craftsman to make them.

The biggest costs come from renting premises and land or purchasing them.

The construction of a new building, the purchase of equipment and various medicines are also significant in terms of money.

If additional paid services are organized on the territory of the shelter, the payback period may be reduced to two years, but during the period of absence of clients it will not be possible to count on help from the state.

Don’t be indifferent, if you yourself cannot organize an animal shelter, then try to help existing ones.

Source: https://mari-a.ru/biznes/kak-otkryt-priyut-dlya-zhivotnyx-poshagovoe-rukovodstvo