Depending on resources, an average of 20 kennels are built every week at our hospital by repurposing the wood of second hand wooden pallets or purchasing wood when we are forced to, after which we paint them as brightly as we can.

Kennels are delivered to the homes of sterilised patients who have little or no shelter. Each kennel has our S.O.S animal ambulance telephone number painted on it and is accompanied with a handmade, durable, waterproof cushion.

Sounds easy? It’s not! Its back breaking work requiring an incredible amount of dedication from SA.MAST to keep this lifesaving programme, with a  considerable humane education component, running.

A constant challenge is to secure enough donated materials or funds to buy materials when donations run out. Funds are also needed for labour, vehicle wear and tear and fuel costs.

To date we have built and distributed almost 3000 kennels in all weather conditions. Can you imagine how much work and dedication this has taken so far? But it is worth it!

Each kennel delivery relieves suffering, save lives and generally attracts the attention of children and neighbours – providing yet another opportunity for SA.MAST to educate and cultivate a more empathetic and non-violent community.

As an added bonus, our ‘hearts and minds’ Kennel Building programme assists in skills and job creation development for Khayelitsha residents and demonstrates our permanent commitment to help and educate animal guardians in this largely impoverished community. Each kennel delivered also goes a very long way to encourage guardians to identify with their dog as a sentient being, to invest in the day-to-day welfare of their animal, and prove to dubious guardians of unsterilized dogs that we can be trusted and are there to help and not to harm.

EPIC! Kennel Build Events

We have hosted several kennel building events. Our last event in 2013, before we decided to build kennels at our hospital every week, saw SA.MAST take it to a whole new level. Pollsmoor offenders were tasked with preparing the 1000 + second-hand wooden pallets needed to create the kennel kits for members of the public to build at our Spring Fun Kennel Building Day in Constantia, Cape Town – attended by almost 1000 people and covered by local, provincial and national print and broadcast media, including SABC 3, Etv and eNca news and magazine channels.

This Pollsmoor partnership ties in with SA.MAST’s ethos to foster a culture of empathy and empowerment by involving offenders in community work and identifying with the needs of others. This initiative served in promoting crime prevention, skills development and job creation as paroled prisoners were equipped with the experience and knowledge they needed to produce and sell these kennels using recycled materials – as opposed to resuming a life of crime.