Animallife is looking for volunteers to support families with animals in need.

Animalife is looking for volunteers to do tasks such as walking the pets of people in need or serving as a “temporary foster.” In the first half of the year

Animalife has no shelter or caretakers for the animals, but it fights against abandonment every day by actively supporting initiatives ranging from free veterinary medical procedures, delivering food to families in need, and simply walking pets whose owners have mobility difficulties.

The president of the association, Rodrigo Livreiro, stressed to Luse that these actions largely depend on the work of volunteers, who can apply for any task. “Requests” are always open, because the larger the team, the more help they can provide.

Created in 2011, the association currently supports more than 700 families and approximately 1,500 animals. In addition to the city of Lisbon, where the majority of beneficiaries live, there are other service centers in cities such as Oeiras, Sintra, Seixal, Porto, Povoa de Varzim or Amadora.

“We are always ready to accept volunteers for day-to-day tasks. Since we have a group of people with mobility difficulties, we really need volunteers for walks, transportation of animals or temporary housing, which is ultimately necessary to adequately respond to these families,” explained Luse Rodrigo Livreiro.

The association needs to increase its team to also ensure the success of events such as the national animal food collection drive, which is being carried out in major supermarkets, he added.

“This is a unique opportunity that we must ask the Portuguese to contribute to. Obviously we need people throughout the year, not only to volunteer at Animalife, but also in the zoophile associations who struggle every day because they find it difficult to maintain the animals they occupy. ” he added.

According to Rodrigo Livreiro, since the beginning of the year the number of requests for help has increased sharply: “In the first six months we received more than four thousand,” many of them related to the electronic identification of cats, which has become mandatory, but also to obtain food or visit a veterinarian.

Animalife has social workers and veterinarians. During this year, 1,094 social services and 756 preventive services were provided at the republican level, the president of the association reported.

Luse, veterinarian Rute However, said that she starts with actions required by law, such as an animal vaccination plan, but often ends up dealing with other pathologies. On the day that Lusa accompanied the veterinarian on consultations with the needy population of the Marvila parish, several situations arose, such as a cat having intestinal problems or a dog having skin problems.

In his makeshift office, sometimes the veterinarian is able to give an answer in the moment, but there are cases that cannot be resolved immediately.

So Ruth has also appealed to those who have animals to deliver medications that are on time and that their animals are no longer using.

The association receives donations of medicine, but there is always a shortage of “skin and joint supplements,” the veterinarian said.

“We have a lot of older dogs with arthrosis that really need this supplement, and sometimes with some gastrointestinal and kidney issues,” he added, explaining that these are normal pathologies in the aging animal population.

“We often don’t have the budget to get the necessary medications for that animal, and what we’re trying to do here sometimes is some kind of partnership so that the medications can actually be delivered and provide a better quality of life,” he said.