WINTER IS COMING!
INNER MONGOLIA, CHINA
There is an ancient, timeless quality to the land where Ruiyun’s shelter is built. It's a sweeping landscape, a big sky country where herds of horses once roamed the grasslands. The expanse of it gives you a sense of freedom rarely seen in the overcrowded cities of the rest of China.
Ruiyun’s shelter is built near Chifeng in Inner Mongolia close to the Russian Border and shares Russia’s subzero winter temperatures. It’s an arid, semi desert landscape in the grassy steppes and once a prehistoric grazing area for the mammoth.
She came with 50 dogs.
She settled in a remote, rural area outside Chifeng after being forced to move four times in five years. The last place she lived, she was evicted. Finally, she had a permanent place to call home. She secured funding for construction from an animal lover and successful entrepreneur and construction began. Then the COVID 19 lockdown happened and her angel could no longer afford to continue construction. She had only two kennels, half finished and modest living quarters to get through the first winter.
In one year of rescuing, there are now 260 dogs.
Mostly rescued from the dog meat traders, Ruiyun has to face the next winter with almost six times the amount of dogs. With no windows or doors on most of the kennels, a dirt floor, and no source of heat, it is a race against time to prepare for the long, harsh winter swiftly approaching.
There is no running water and Ruiyun has been carrying water from the river and catching the roof runoff with rain barrels. The arid landscape means all the dirt becomes mud in the rainy season and there is no paved road into the shelter making supply transport more difficult.
A wall fell down and a bridge was built.
We first met Ruiyin during the great flood this summer in China. The torrential rain crumbled a recently constructed wall that enclosed the Chifeng Shelter compound. WOA Foundation helped rebuild that wall and finish the first two kennels. SPCAI partnered with WOA Foundation to fund the construction of two more kennels to house the dogs who had been rescued from the dog meat trade.
Ruiyun’s passion, love, and care for her rescues inspired our further help. We are helping her finish construction on the first two kennels and build out two more, including a new concrete floor so all her dogs can survive the winter with a modicum of comfort.
We also plan to purchase heaters, beds, blankets, and food. It gets so frigid that the water in the dogs’ bowls actually freeze into bowl sized ice cubes. Running water needs to be accessible for proper cleaning and care. A well needs to be dug before the ground freezes and makes it impossible.
Cold hands, warm heart.
We need your immediate help to make this shelter a home to the 260 dogs that are counting on us. By a fragile miracle, they survived and escaped the slaughterhouse and now they deserve to survive the winter.
Winter is the worst time of year for homeless animals in China.
60% of strays don’t make it through the winter. Let your heart melt and help Ruiyun continue to keep her rescues safe and warm through the long winter nights.
Please donate now.