A kind-hearted East Lothian woman has heralded the generosity of her community after a number of donations were made to help rescue cats from North Macedonia settle into their foster home.
Sue Bagley, 50, has recently become a trustee of Meow Paws North Macedonia, a charity that looks after stray cats and dogs in the Balkans and tries to find new homes for the most vulnerable of animals back in Scotland.
The charity was originally set up by Misko and Iva, who are a couple from North Macedonia that care for cats and dogs without a home. Sue says the charity does amazing work neutering and caring for animals in a region that lacks an animal shelter community.
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The Dunbar GP nurse has herself has adopted two cats, Willow and Essen, as well as an Alsatian mutt, Wilson, who she lives with at her home. But due to the increasing need to re-home vulnerable animals from the Balkan country, she issued an appeal to the wider public for items that would help her create a foster environment within her home.
Sue says that she was blown away by the response of people who shared food, scratch posts, litter boxes and a whole host of other items so that she could turn a spare room into a respite area for animals before they went onto their new owners in Scotland’s central belt.
She said that despite the cost of living crisis, she has been bowled over by the generosity of people showing concern for the animals. Although she adds that the charity is desperate for new potential foster hosts and owners to come forward.
On the donations she received, she said: “One of the issues we have as a charity is that if you bring animals across you need to have rescue back up plan in place. This is a fail safe in case things do not work out with certain families.
“This means that foster homes are essential so that they can take in cats and dogs at short notice and assess potential families. This stops animals that we bring in from the Balkans from ending up in the rescue system here.
“We have already adopted two cats and a dog but we planned on setting up a cat room but just needed some equipment. So I posted asking for a bit of help and the response was astonishing.
“I'm taken aback by how generous people have been with food and equipment - it is far more than I need and it now means we can support the set up of other foster homes now. Even in hard times and over the Christmas period, with the cost of living crisis and fuel costs going up, people are still giving generously.
“It makes our lives easier if we can foster them for a while in Scotland and then re-home them from here.”
The charity supports the efforts of Misko and Iva in North Macedonia to carry out routine caring responsibilities from medical treatments, to supplying food more shelter style care for animals that would not survive on the streets.
Sue, along with other trustees in Scotland, work to try to bring the animals that have been in their care for the longest or are considered to be the most vulnerable to new homes in Edinburgh, the Lothians and Fife.
She says that there is a larger animal care focused community in the UK whereas traditionally animals can be mistreated in certain cultures in Europe. When bringing an animal across to the UK - they would ask for the new family to pay for the travel costs of the animal, an amount that can be as high as £600.
But in order to ensure more animals can be re-homed, the charity is now looking to raise funds so that the cost of travel can be met alongside the already met charges for vaccination etc of the cats and dogs. This, they hope, will mean that those who would make great new owners but do not have the economic means to currently adopt, would be able to with greater support from the charity.
She continued: “The cats and dogs that we bring across from North Macedonia come by land. We use a commercial transport company but that often comes with a big fee.
“The animals have passports and their travel documents as well as vaccinations covered by the charity but we normally ask those adopting to pay the £400-600 transport fee. That is why we are fundraising to try to pay for that cost to be covered so that those who have a suitable home but can't afford the travel can help.
“If anybody wants to help us then please get in touch through our Facebook or our website.”
You can visit their website here and their Facebook here.
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