Germany
There are two things you don’t see on Berlin’s streets; trash and stray animals. Neat and tidy surroundings demonstrate Germans’ meticulousness and this extends to their animal shelters.
Tierheim is German for animal home, and one can be found in almost every major city, providing a little bit of respite for animals in the concrete jungle of modern society.
A Tierheim functions as more than a shelter. It also provides vet services and vaccinations, emergency rooms for livestock, lost and found pets and even pet cemeteries. There are currently more than 1,500 of them across Germany. By selecting the area you live, the nearest Tierheim can be easily found online at Tierheimlinks. For people who adopt an animal from the Tierheim instead of promoting the business of pet shops, they are helping relieve the misery of animals in the long run, according to a message on the Tierheimlinks.
A Massive Shelter
Tierheim Berlin, the biggest animal shelter in Europe, covers an area of 16 hectares outside the city and is open to visitors every Wednesday to Sunday. We are fortunate to visit there and witness the adoption experience of a couple we meet on the bus to Tierheim Berlin, Andreas and Notineim. Getting off the bus and after about a five-minute walk, they are already well aware that this is the largest shelter in Europe, and then the gate appears in front of us. There are four cat houses on the left, six large dog houses in the middle, an information desk and the “Bugs and Bunny” house for rabbits and other small animals on the right. There is a farm for domestic animals at the back. As the owner of two cats, Andreas and Notineim would like to adopt one or two dogs in the next few months. “One is good and two is perfect,” says Notineim. They set plans for their future family member and since it is their first visit, they plan to visit a few more times to make the final decision.
Each dog house is shaped in a circle and every dog is separated in its own space, with a backyard. When you enter the dog house, the animals wag their tails and bark as if they are desperate to follow you home. Each room holds only around 10 dogs, but the air is not that pleasant. However, the couple do not mind at all and they busily go through numerous rooms. When reading the notes beside each dog, Notineim cannot stop crying. The stories of the dogs must be upsetting.
Faced with so many dogs in need of help, they are frustrated. “I feel sad because I want to help, but I can’t help all,” says Andreas. When asked why they want to adopt dogs rather than buy them in a pet shop, they ask why buy lives? They can feel the sadness and desperation of the abandoned animals and note that “they are not goods you can buy and return.” From the bottom of their hearts, they feel that buying a life is unacceptable.
The shelters care for more than 10,000 animals each year, backed by donations and corporate sponsorship. The animals can also be individually sponsored, a way for animal lovers to help out even if they don’t have the space, or time, for a pet of their own.
Some estimates put the adoption rate at a remarkable 90% despite stringent requirements for new owners. For example, a household where no-one is home for more than eight hours is not considered eligible.
Panorama of the Shelter ©Tierheim Berlin
Strong Measures
The shelter care is backed up by other measure showing how seriously Germans take animal welfare. This most recent Christmas, German shelters put a halt to adoptions from December until January, to prevent pets being traded as gifts that might not be wanted.
There is a strong Animal Welfare Act and, most notably, there is the Hundesteueror ‘dog tax’. This has been abandoned in most European countries, including the UK, but the Germans have held on. All owners must get licences for their dogs and pay the tax, which reaped an estimated 11 million Euros in Berlin alone in 2016. In Berlin, it costs about 140 Euros for your first dog, and even more for each extra one, keeping down dog numbers.
Despite the remaining high number of dogs without homes, overall it seems that Germany is leading the way for a lot of other places, including the UK, to follow to help animals find a better life.