SUST in Hungary: Steadily growing animal welfare success since 2002

Since 2002, the Susy Utzinger Animal Welfare Foundation has been supporting animal shelters and animal welfare organisations in Hungary - and new projects and partner animal shelters are constantly being added. On this map you can see the animal welfare projects supported by SUST.

Here too, the animal welfare work is based on four pillars:

1. shelter support: help for self-help

SUST plans and implements animal shelter optimizations, finances animal feed, carries out work weeks, delivers pallets of relief goods (animal supplies), finances and carries out conversions.

2. neutering campaigns: braking the animal misery

Together with its partner projects and veterinarians in Hungary, SUST carries out extensive castration activities and finances these operations.

3. training and further education of skilled workers: the problem is tackled at its roots

Together with its partners, SUST plans and conducts veterinary training and animal welfare seminars in Hungary.

4. education of the population: love of animals with heart and mind

The information brochures, children's books and poster campaigns of the SUST also exist in Hungarian.

These four pillars are based on emergency aid for animals in need: In addition to the SUST animal orphanage hospital in Budapest, the SUST finances emergency food supplies and various materials (e. g. infra-panels and isolated dog houses in winter).

For a whole year the Susy Utzinger Foundation for Animal Welfare in Hungary collected figures: The foundation's Hungarian agent Gabriella Meszaros visited killing stations and private animal shelters, talked to veterinarians, counted street dogs and calculated how many dog places are available in shelters and stations. She encountered terrible circumstances and questionable payments in this EU country: besides unacceptable killing stations, shocking living conditions for humans and animals, she also had to deal with dramatic individual fates of dogs.
 
The Susy Utzinger Foundation for Animal Welfare prepared a report to inform about the situation in Hungary and to get to the root of the dramatic problem. About 29'000 dogs live on Hungary's streets under sad conditions and multiply continuously, about 20'000 street dogs are caught annually and most of them die in killing stations. 115 killing stations are financed by the state: Dog catchers, employees in the killing stations, real estate, food and finally the killings cost the country about 13.3 million Euros annually. This seems to be a profitable business for the operators of these killing stations, who, with a total of 1'978 dog places offered in these institutions, earn 6'724 Euros per place and year! A solution that is not only economically illogical, but also neither in keeping with the times nor with animals. Animal welfare activists all over Europe have been criticising Hungary's handling of its street dogs for a long time.
 
The castration of the currently around 29'000 street dogs - and thus the sustainable solution to this problem - would cost the state around 2 million euros per year. An investment that would be worthwhile - for humans and animals.
 
This first and only report on the street dog situation in Hungary and the outdated system of urban killing stations as well as the corresponding solution proposal of the Susy Utzinger Foundation for Animal Welfare was personally handed over to the Ministry of Agriculture on 30 January 2019 by SUST agent Gabriella Meszaros and presented in detail.  Based on this report, the Ministry of Agriculture supported the Hungarian Animal Welfare 2019 with 330.000,00 EUR for castration projects in the whole country.