Making Happy Tails for Street Dogs in Rwanda

Dear friends and supporters of WAG, 

We hope you are all doing well - the dogs all send their greetings to wherever this report finds you in the world! 

Thanks to your ongoing support, we are continuing to run our little shelter in this peaceful corner of Kigali - rescuing dogs, providing them with love and care, and finding them permanent homes. Since our last report in mid-March, we have rescued 22 dogs, including 4 orphan puppies who needed bottle feeding, mama dog Viola and her 5 newborn babies, lots of single orphan puppies, and several adult dogs including one with a TVT tumour on her face. But we’ve only rehomed 5 dogs in this time – adoptions have been really slow the last few months: few adoption applications, and even fewer who end up actually adopting. So, our shelter has been much busier than usual, with more mouths to feed and paws to walk! But all of our shelter residents are happy and safe. 

We’d like to share a few stories of the dogs we’ve rescued recently whose care has been made possible thanks to you: 

Shoebill 

Shoebill was found during our Kigali mass vaccination campaign in March, terrified and in distress. Once our team managed to catch him (using our new catch nets!), they found that he had a chain deeply embedded into his neck. 

We quickly got him to the shelter, sedated him and worked to remove the chain. It left a gaping wound around his neck; he would have certainly died had we not rescued him. 

The community where we found Shoebill told us that he did once have an owner but he was abandoned. Yet another dog, left on the street to fend for himself - the problem of abandonment keeps getting worse in Kigali and we are finding dogs like Shoebill who have suffered terrible neglect and abuse. 

Luckily for Shoebill, he is now healed and ready for adoption. He’s a quiet boy and prefers to spend time alone away from the other dogs. He would thrive in a calm home by himself, with a lot of love so he can learn to trust humans again. We’re really hoping we find him a home soon, but until then, he is loved and cared for at the shelter. 

Wissa 

Wissa is one of our most recent rescues, a sweet and friendly girl who was abandoned with her legs tied together, the rope causing deep wounds. Someone had heartbreakingly abandoned her to die. When we first met Wissa, we originally thought that she had a jaw injury, but it is in fact a birth defect or very old injury; she has a misaligned jaw and her nose points to one side. Despite her tough circumstances, Wissa is a lovely dog who just wants to be with people. She’s sociable, playful and adventurous - and we think her distinctive facial features make her all the more loveable! 

Bruno

Another victim of abandonment, Bruno was found lying in the road, extremely malnourished and with a skin infection. We were shocked at his condition when we found him, and at first he didn’t trust humans at all - it took Paci (our certified dog whisperer!) a couple of hours to gain his trust enough to catch him. 

But now Bruno has made an incredible recovery and he’s friendly and active, and a favourite amongst our shelter team. He has forgotten his past and is now looking forward to a happy future! 

Mass Vaccination Campaign Project

In our last report, we were about to start our Kigali mass vaccination campaign in partnership with Mission Rabies. This was the first ever systematic, door-to-door vaccination campaign in Rwanda, and we had teams of vaccinators and data collectors going to every corner of Kanombe and Masaka sectors to vaccinate dogs to reach a 70% rabies vaccination coverage. Post-campaign surveys showed we did, which was a huge achievement - and as well as vaccinating almost 2000 dogs in a little under 10 days, we also discovered a lot more about the dog population that helps our work. We found that the majority of dogs are kept in extreme confinement during the day, almost half are let out to roam unaccompanied at various times, and the majority of dogs are not sterilised. So this campaign not only helped protect our dogs and communities against rabies, but it told us more about dogs are kept and how we can advocate, educate, and run programs to change things to improve the welfare of dogs. We are working on education and veterinary outreach projects, amongst many others, as well as a continuation of our commitment to support the Government of Rwanda achieve a rabies-free Rwanda by 2030!

We hope that you continue to be inspired by our work - we really do so much with so little and we are most definitely changing lives and making a positive impact. Over the coming months we hope to share more with you about our plans to construct our own shelter - another project we are working on in the background! - as well as updates on the new and ongoing projects we have running. Without you, none of this is possible, so thank you. 

With love from the humans and dogs of WAG Rwanda x

Dear friends and supporters of WAG, 

We’ve definitely spent the first 3 months of 2026 in usual WAG fashion – as busy as possible! 

We’ve rescued some lovely pups recently - 16 in total since the beginning of December. Some rescue highlights include: 

Gorgeous Timber, a German Shepherd mix who was abandoned with a skin condition and malnutrition. He has gorgeously striking eyes and is now ready for his forever home after lots of love and care at the shelter! 

Sweet Jolie, who was found chained to a road sign in a residential neighbourhood, again another victim of abandonment. 

Rema was yet another abandoned dog, and he has an old break in his leg that requires amputation, which he will undergo at the end of March. We’re hoping it’ll improve his quality of life - he’s such a sweet and friendly boy despite what he’s been through. If you are able to donate a little bit more to help us cover the cost of this expensive surgery, we would be very grateful. And feel free to get in touch via email at info@wagrwanda.org if you’d like more details on how to support Rema’s care.  

We’ve rescued quite a few puppies recently, including tiny Mwezi who was left outside our shelter gate, beautiful Beans with her distinctive black and white coat, and Kiki who was in a ditch in Kiyovu! These single orphan puppies suffer so much on the street, so we’re so pleased we can help them and get them into loving homes (and of course sterilise them before they leave the shelter!). 

We’ve had 8 adoptions since the start of December - we’ve said farewell to some lovely dogs who deserve nothing but the best, including Eze, Rain, Maddie and Sheba. All dogs are getting on well in their new homes, and some even join old WAG graduates - we love our adopters who adopt 2 or even 3 dogs from us! 

We’ve also had a busy few weeks with our annual mass sterilisation project with the Foundation for Veterinary Aid International (FAVI). Together we went to 5 very rural places in Kayonza and Ngoma districts in the Eastern province to set up field clinics providing free sterilisations and veterinary care for dogs in these areas. Almost 200 dogs (and several cats too!) were successfully sterilised in places where there are very limited veterinary services for small animals. In one place, Sake, there are still more dogs who need sterilising so we hope to go back there soon and incorporate some training for local vets there so they can continue this essential work. HUGE thank you to our friends from FAVI for coming all the way from Canada, bringing all the medications, supplies, expertise, and friendship to Rwanda. We’re already planning the next campaign! 

I write this update on the eve of a pilot Kigali city mass vaccination campaign that we are organising in collaboration with our partners Mission Rabies, the Rwanda Agriculture and Animal Resources Development Board, and Rwanda Biomedical Centre. Having the opportunity to learn from and work alongside the Mission Rabies experts to bring a project of this scale to life, to help support to Rwanda’s national rabies elimination strategy, and to learn how to effectively vaccinate thousands of dogs in a short period of time has been an incredible experience so far and one that will have far-reaching impacts on dogs and their welfare, as well as public health, in Rwanda. We’re so proud to be involved! Look out for more updates on our social media :)

Your donations, which keep our shelter running, keep the dogs fed, happy and loved, and cover their medical costs, are vital in enabling us to do other projects with partners such as Mission Rabies and FAVI. While we’re out there in different communities working on projects that address the many root causes of why dogs are on the street in the first place, our shelter and rescue work have to keep running because there are always dogs in need of our help. 

So thank you for your continued support, and as always, sending wagging tails from the dogs of WAG!