Rescues

The Farah Pups rescue!

These puppies were rescued along with their mum Riri by some determined soldiers in a land too harsh for them to survive.

The fate of this family had they not met their soldier saviours would have been uncertain to say the least. However, thanks to an extraordinary fundraising effort by the Nowzad Family and help from our friends at No Dogs Get Left Behind, they are now living the American Dream.

Here are their before and after ‘tails’!

Ranger's Soldier Saviour says:

This little Ranger cat was going from dumpster to dumpster trying to get some food in the freezing winter in Gardez, Afghanistan.

She would spend her nights near the diesel generators on the base to stay as warm as possible.

*Please note that some may find the content of this story distressing*

One day towards the end of 2019 we received a call from a distressed Afghan local who had seen a dog with severe abdominal injuries by the side of the road in Kabul.

Pen found a tiny pup with string tied around his neck and in the early onset of mange wandering across the busy main road in Police District 6 of Kabul. Safely at the Nowzad clinic he was treated and cared for and immediately became a firm favourite with the Afghan team. Mango as he was known in the early days, was a delightfully friendly dog and we were desperate to find him his forever home.

Jamila stepped forward to be the difference for Mango and renamed him Rafiq. Here is her story;

Raven's story:

Raven and her siblings were born in front of a Canadian compound in Kabul.  People would try to hurt them, so the kind people brought them into the compound. They could not keep all of them, six in total. Raven and her sister, Rae were sent to Nowzad to be looked after.

Here is Carter's story!

I adopted my first dog when I was in college. I found her at my local animal shelter, and I immediately fell in love with her. We were inseparable for the next fourteen years. After she passed away, I knew that I wanted to eventually adopt another dog in need of a home because I believe that the love of a rescue dog is without equal. Additionally, during those fourteen years, I married a military service member who saw combat in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Here is Moosh’s story from Jon and Ethaar

“It’s a big decision to adopt a dog and particularly so from Afghanistan!  We had personal reasons for wanting to do so and hoped that our new family member could become a good pal for our eight year old collie-X ‘Billy’. 

“We adopted Bear, a most handsome, black cat from Nowzad almost 3 years ago.
I guess we could be called 2^nd hand adopters because Bear was originally destined for another home. The fundraising had been done and Bear arrived in the UK to start his new life. Unfortunately, Bear did not get along too well with the other cats already living in the house, so reluctantly his new family decided that Bear would be better placed in another home.

 

Nowzad is extremely busy supporting soldier rescues; here are three of the current rescues;

Raisin

Raisin's Soldier Saviour says; 'I found Raisin about a few days after Thanksgiving, here in Bagram. She was in a drainage pipe under one of the towers I maintain. She would come close but not enough to pet. She was young, little, and unsure of what this human wanted. She wouldn’t eat the cheese, bacon, or turkey I left her. This went on for a few days. 
Finally, one day as I visited her, I was eating my favourite cookie; oatmeal raisin.  She came closer, ate a little bit (without raisins) and proceeded to not only come close enough for me to pet, but followed me to my truck.  She loved that cookie for sure, so I named her Raisin. 

We recently received a call about a young dog that had been hit by a vehicle and had been left to die by the side of a road with two broken legs. 
The resilient little dog somehow endured her injuries and she learnt to walk and survive without the use of her two dead back legs. 

Asir found his own way to the Nowzad clinic one day! We don’t know how he knew but he was found at our front gate with a severely injured paw. 

Kazan dog is a Dutch Shepherd who worked tirelessly in Iraq and Afghanistan for over 12 years preventing attacks.  Thankfully, when he started to show signs of slowing down, the company he was owned by offered him up for retirement adoption.

We were informed of a dog by an ex-pat working within one of the many international compounds in Kabul. 

Sadly, the dog had apparently bitten someone and the person was afraid of contracting rabies. We assumed the worse and expected and so took along all of our protective gear and equipment for catching a ferocious dog.........

Eva was one of our longest residents here at the Nowzad dog shelter; she was first rescued as a young dog 7 years previously. Loving people beyond doubt she had a serious problem with other dogs and we struggled to rehome her as an only dog. 

Atel was brought to Nowzad by a concerned local Afghan man after he found her on the street with a broken leg.  With the best of intentions, he had tied rope around her injured leg in an attempt to splint it. 


 

Abby was originally sent to us for TNVR.  But once she had arrived at the clinic it was clear that she had contracted Leishmaniosis, a terrible disease caused by the bite of the sand-fly.
 

Darakht meaning ‘tree’ was found one morning by a member of our team arriving for work at the Nowzad clinic. Probably at only around a few months old, the poor mite had been tied to a tree outside our shelter. 

Asha was rescued by our shelter staff during the middle of winter. Huddled for warmth with her siblings she was just days old. Sadly, Asha was an extremely timid dog and always wary of people. 

We received a call from a concerned American at the US embassy; ‘We usually have lots of cats and dogs roaming around the Embassy and we become friendly with those that allow us to approach them, I noticed Ghost a few months back, she would come around and play with an adult yellow lab as a small pup, and gradually started approaching the Security teams.

We were on a night operation with our partner force in a small Taliban village in Kandahar. We entered a compound and heard this loud bark. Assuming there would be a large dog inside, we found the room the bark was coming from with much caution. Only to find the sweetest puppy you've ever seen. He was chained up in the tiny dirty room.

This is the message we received from the caring American who started to look out for this lonely pup; 

I am currently an English Teacher in Afghanistan, teaching Afghan soldiers. A challenging job to say the least, but one, I feel I am making a difference, despite the location and history.

I have stumbled upon a female puppy, all alone, which at first I thought, she will never make it.

From her rescuer;

Stella is a great cat. She was hanging out in her favorite sun spot when we first met. I noticed she had little spot of fur missing on her hind leg and what looked like a small cut. It was nothing serious but I could instantly tell she was a scrapper. A lot of the cats in the area have their special posts when its chow time. They know where to sit to get food from people and they can be protective of those spots. Stella was not very big so she looked to have taken a bit of a beating.

Hello, my name is Echo. I’m The Bacon Cat! I was born in a far-away land called Afghanistan, but it was really dusty there and I didn’t like it much. I decided I needed more friends because I was hungry and friends always give you food.

Back in October 2016 the Nowzad team received an email from a very concerned Afghan man named Mohammad. It read as follows: 

"My name is Mohammad and I am living in Macrorayan, Kabul, Afghanistan.  
It is almost more than 20 days that I am seeing a very unfortunate dog in the streets of 3^rdMacrorayan and he is living in a very bad and disturbing situation.  
He has lost his two behind legs as a result of the cruelty of people and now-a-days he is just walking on the streets with only his 2 front legs.  

My name is PFC Maggie the Cat. Age 6 months

Log entry 19 Sept 2016

In July 2016 I was stationed on an Army Base in Kandahar, Afghanistan where my mission was to find lost and lonely soldiers who missed their families and cheer them up.

My commander explained to me that my job might become dangerous and very lonely. Too soon I learned how true this was.

Spirit was rescued from a degassing station in Iraq in a place called Rumaila by a soldier. 

She was a tiny little puppy all on her own and her eyes were found sealed with mud and sleep. How she was surviving we do not know. 
The soldier cared for this tiny pup, made her better and made her stronger. He reached out to us and we managed to get the puppy to safety through an epic journey across Iraq.

Even with the coalition forces draw down we are still being inundated with requests from soldiers and contractors desperate to find out if they can transport their four legged buddy home with them. 
And thanks to your amazing support we are making that difference and being able to help.

US contractor Brett found playful pup Carolina wandering the perimeter of Bagram airbase about an hour north of Kabul, but with the strict ‘no feral’ policy enforced at the base; Brett was forced to care for her outside of the base security, clearly not a long term solution.

‘Sharifa’ as she was named, was found by local Afghans at the popular ‘Sakhi Shrine’ in Mazar-e-Sharif in a very bad way. More or less about to give up and die. But thankfully Nowzad is gaining a very good reputation in Afghanistan and a message was passed to us about a dog that desperately needed our help.

Without a moment’s hesitation our amazing Afghan team at the Nowzad clinic jumped into action and arranged to have the poor mite transported to our clinic in Kabul arriving less than 24 hours later.

Along with all the cats we are helping to rehome that are former residents at the US and UK embassies and for cats now adopted by soldiers serving at the coalition headquarters in Kabul we have also supported the adoption of some of our feline friends that found their way to Nowzad but never had a home to go to.

Little Ash was found miraculously surviving fairly well on the harsh streets of Kabul. I say miraculously, because Ash had been born without eyes. Just empty sockets stared back at the kind expat who stooped to pick up the curious young grey and white cat sat unwisely on the side of the busy road.

Back in 2016 driving through the streets of downtown Kabul in a bitterly cold January morning, Pen & Hannah along with Dr Mujtaba were alerted to a dog believed to be stuck in a drainage ditch. The weather forecast was for heavy rain later in the day so no time was wasted in locating the dog, not finding them was not an option for the rescue team.