HELP !
Centaurus Fundation is asking for help all of you - we are currently running an action to save from dieing 20 horses.
We were asked for help by some kids, who passe the "stud" every day, while walking to college.
They observe this horrible view from the street and are unable to do anything.
Horses, standing in small "buildiung" made of some pieces of wood, with chains on their necks. No place to move, no water, no hain. No grass, no running, no wind. All day inside. From many years.
But they know pretty well what is pain, what means to disobey, what it takes.
The owner died some years ago, his brother decided to keep horses for some time, but he has forgotten they are living creatures. Today horses in Poland are very cheap, the new owner wants to wait for better price per kilo.. these horses are waiting for nothing. Waiting in pain, with no tomorrow, no helping hand.
Each day third brother, an alcoholic, is "taking care" of them - already condamned for abusing over animals.
In Poland The Animal Act is dead. You are able to take away the animals only and only in case of imminent danger of death. In this case - there is nothing we can do but buy the animals just hoping it will change one day. But shell we wait until this day ? These horses have no time left. And no hope left. Slaughterhouse - it's their only future.
Poland in not only the european leader in slaughter of horses, but also in inhumane treating of animals in slaughterhouses. We cannot save all the animals.. but these horses were touched by us, we saw them, we heard their scream.
And animal is not a thing.
Centaurus Foundation, non profit organization, is giving rescue to animals from 2 years. Nearly 50 horses rescued, most of them already living new life with new, loving owners, in adoption.
One life price is over 900 euro - this is price we have to pay, so that one horse has a new life.
In Poland we succeded in rascuing 2 of them, with 2000 euro - but still 18 are waiting.
Time is runnig - 12 of January is the last day.
We are not able to make a choice and leave any of them to slaughter.
After many years of living in horror, they deserve to be loved, to feel safe.
We ask you for help. We ask for rescue. They ask.
Thank you for any help, any.
BPKO PL PW PKO BP SA Wrocław 151020 5226 0000 6002 0220 0350
An animal as a living being capable of feeling pain is not an item.
An animal as a living being capable of feeling pain is not an item. A man owes it respect, protection and care.
Centaurus Foundation was established to bring help to those who cannot exact their rights themselves. Every year, thousands of horses die in tortures during their transport to slaughter; many of them do not reach the end of their journey. The horses, however, suffer not only during transports, which have been, fortunately, more often spoken about lately. Many horses that need our help live just nearby. Empty cribs, a drunken owner who uses his whip and pitchfork (incompatibly with its purpose) too often, overgrown hoofs, dung glued to the horses' fur or deadly work beyond their power. No love, no trust, no hope for a better tomorrow. No person who would bend, scratch behind the ear and understand that it is not possible to live like that. But the real world does not leave any choice - an animal can hardly ever decide about its own lot. Hardly ever anyone shows his compassion. Let's remember that a horse suffers in silence. Let's not stay indifferent.
What motivated us to establish Centaurus Foundation was a 13 year old, black mare called Sorbona (you can read her story in the section "Nasze konie" (eng. "Our horses"). While conducting a broad-scoped, pilot campaign to get her a life-saving operation we understood that there are hundreds or even thousands of people like us. We just have to unite our efforts and the impossible will become possible. Thanks to you we could give Sorbona a chance for another life. Today one can come to a small, brick stable near Wroclaw and see how Sorbona, limping, wanders through green grass-lands. She approaches the wooden logs, leans her head against them and thoughtfully looks straight ahead, still chewing the last bits of cool, fresh grass. There is no pain or sorrow in her eyes. Her leg isn't and never will be perfectly fit but this is not the point. Suddenly Dixie stands behind her, nibbles her croup and merrily bucking she runs away. Sorbona looks back on her and then one can see in her eyes the plain, horse joy of living.
Centaurus is the symbol of a particular union of man and horse. That is why the second and very important aim of the foundation is to run an extensive hippotherapy programme. The foundation works in cooperation with numerous therapy centers, penitentiaries, schools and orphanages. Treatment by contact with a horse is not only aimed for children but also for youth and adults. Our struggle is waged to help the handicapped as well as people suffering civilization diseases such as depression, neurosis, different kinds of phobias and anxieties, anorexia, bulimia, shyness or even stress. You can get more information in the section devoted to hippotherapy.
To run such a broad activity Centaurus Foundation is planning to open a center near Wroclaw which would include a horse asylum and in the future a clinic for large animals and a hippotherapy center. It requires, however, a lot of work and outlay. But, as wee have seen for ourselves, we are not alone in our struggle and that everything can be made possible if we really want it. That is why we set our expectations high. It is worth it.
Centaurus Foundation gathers not only the few people you can find on our website. There are also many volunteers, friends and donors about whom nobody will ever hear because they prefer to stay in the background. You can see them at night behind the monitor when they fight for every little sum of money from the sponsors; you can see them with a shovel, knee-deep in dung; sometimes sad, sometimes merry; and also you can find them drinking beer with their friends in the evening on Wroclaw's marketplace. Our foundation gathers ordinary people who can spend their whole day raising money to a can, building a stable in heat; they can give their student's pocket-money, they can sew a halter by themselves, they can watch over a horse all night or fight for its life for many weeks, devoting all their free time to that. In the evening however, you can see them at the marketplace laughing and having a good time with their friends. You can also find them in the park strolling with their children or at home studying before an exam. They are students, youth, working people and the unemployed, people of different religions and different personalities. They are united by their passion - horses. They stay themselves. It is partly thanks to their devotion that we can save the horses and offer free hippotherapy.
To all people thanks to whom we can exist - great thank you!
With you the impossible becomes possible...
ADOPTION
Centaurus Foundation wishes for all its wards to have their personal carers. To achieve this aim we created a special programme which enables each horse to get a person who can be trusted and who would take comprehensive care of him, also at a distance. There are three ways of adopting a horse:
Long-distance adoption
This type of adoption concerns the horses which have to stay in the Foundation's mother stable or they are helping children and youth in hippotherapy sessions. The patron can choose the horse's name, the halter (this has rather symbolic significance but we know from our experience that it can give a lot of pleasure) or the brushes. The patron pays for the horse's monthly maintenance, the blacksmith's services, the horse's inoculations and disinfestations. He can visit his horse whenever he desires and he is informed without delay about the news from the stable concerning his steed. He receives pictures, films and information about the horse's health state on given address.
Direct adoption
This form of adoption enables taking care of a horse in the patron's own stable or hotel. The horses which can be put to direct adoption are usually healthy or they do not require permanent treatment. Before making a decision to adopt a horse one has to remember that a horse normally reaches the age of twenty. Adoption is not a form of temporary lease; the Foundation seeks permanent and loving patrons for whom the horse would become an inseparable part of their lives and a member of their families until the end of their days.
Adoption of heart
The last form of adoption is aimed for those who are not in funds but they want to help and have their own favorite. One of the goals of our foundation is to restore the horses' faith in man. We wish to assure each animal individual care. Our herd is constantly expanding and we are looking for people who would take care of one chosen horse in our foundation's stable. A person who adopts a horse looks after it daily, cares for its walks, brushing, cleaning, and bathing. If necessary he also teaches the horse to lunge or to give its foreleg. In individual cases among the duties there is riding on horseback but it shouldn't be treated as a separate possibility.
You can find out more about the types of adoption in separate sections beside.
If you are interested in any form of adoption, please, contact us!
e-mail:
fundacja@centaurus.org.pl
NEWS
The Mares
Many horses wait to be rescued, most of them will not live to that moment. Many of them will be transported to French or Italian slaughterhouses and the old ones will go to Jaslo where cat and dog food is produced...
During the last few days we encountered a few horses that await rescue. Among them there were they... Mother and daughter locked in a narrow cell.
The mother is an aged mare; the daughter is just a two-year-old baby. The mother moves with difficulty, her gnarled tarsal joints ale almost straight, her hoofs bent outwards; tiny steps, trudging, standing only on the tip of the hoof, injuries on her body and her protruding spine. The suffering... Once she had to be a very good horse - tall, slender, with a beautiful head and huge eyes. Today in these eyes one can see only her sadness and concern for her child.
The decision is made immediately.
They are for sale together - the mares are very intimate, separation would be a next dramatic experience for them.
The price for both horses is 4000 zlotys.
It is very difficult to write about this animal's suffering, it is hard to pass her by indifferent seeing the sadness in her eyes, it is hard to come back home later and not to think...
The owner sells horses, he has a dozen or so of them - heavy and lightweight, he has a six-month-old cold-blooded stallion that is being fattened for meat, and also he has these two mares... The stallion will be fattened for two more months before going to the slaughterhouse, but the mares do not have any time left.
We are asking for your help again.
We are asking for even the smallest financial support:
Centaurus Foundation
151020 5226 0000 6002 0220 0350
with a postscript - Klacze
According to Polish law all donations for our organization can be deducted from your taxes. Check how to claim a tax allowance and help the horses at the same time.
We are asking for help in treating Dusza
The mare was rushed to the clinic in Gliwice. Only the instant intervention of the doctors there gave her some chances. COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease - asthma) as well as the sarcoids have to be cured, in both cases, nevertheless, the stage of the disease is very advanced (the sarcoids are on the photograph). The treatment will not only be long but also very expensive. The mare has already suffered much so we decided for the latest type of anesthetics which is, unfortunately, also the most expensive but it guarantees the smallest possible interference in the animal's body and the fastest awakening. Dusza has to have the strength to awake. We owe this to her - it is not much for the whole evil, recklessness and suffering that she experienced from humans. The biggest chance for Duszyczka is an alergostop - a medicine (a vaccine) prepared individually for a horse on the basis of its blood sample. It lessens the symptoms of COPD - the mare could live normally. The medicine imported from Germany costs 180 euros - it is the newest and most effective method, not yet available in Poland. Most of the horses with COPD have to suffer it until their death. Dusza has been given a chance and we are hoping that afterwards more horses will. We are aware that the medicine is expensive, that now it is holiday time... but please, help us! The total cost of Dusza's treatment estimated by the Clinic is about 6500 zlotys. Her stay in the clinic on sawdust costs; it is quite expensive (more than 20 zlotys per day). Also the antibiotics, bandages, preliminary COPD treatment (before the vaccine is given the mare has to be brought to at least a good state, now secretion still rests in her lungs). The cost of removing the sarcoids is about 1600 zlotys.
Dusza is twelve years old. She had lived in good conditions. It's sufficient to take a look at her - that is how a cared for horse looks like. Dusza had had everything that a horse could dream of. But life can be cruel - fate wasn't on her side. Two years ago first problems with breathing appeared but no one could give an appropriate diagnosis. The owners were put off their guard and for two years they were convinced that nothing wrong is happening. After these two years the mare's health condition became to deteriorate rapidly. It happened that she couldn't stand on her legs; her suffering seemed to be unbearable. The owners didn't save money on her treatment and despite their difficult material situation they preferred to deny something to themselves. Dusza was examined by many vets and not before a year later did one of them suggest COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) - horse asthma. The mare's health state was already very serious. Her functioning was practically impossible in normal conditions, sometimes her attacks lasted for many hours - the mare was suffocating, collapsing and thrashing around. We've also heard about hundreds of methods used by the doctors to cure the mare. Numerous sarcoids (visible on the photos) turned up on her body. Although the owners spent a lot of money to eliminate them, the sarcoids spread dreadfully, forming extensive wounds with pus all over her body. The local doctors - "experts" cut them out many times but probably they did it unprofessionally because now on Dusza's body there are growing, suppurating clusters which bring indescribable pain.
Nobody managed to heal neither COPD nor the sarcoids and the local vets stripped the horse's owners of all their money. Then the vets suggested a solution - to send the mare to a slaughterhouse. For them she was only a bunch of meat - if they couldn't profit from her why should they deceive the owners that they were able to help. Now when the money has run out the issue has to be closed. Never mind that because of the incompetent experiments the mare suffered indescribable tortures. Never mind that the owners were given illusory hope that everything would be fine. It wasn't fine. Each following day was worse than the previous one.
When the owner contacted with us she was on the verge of mental breakdown - the half-dead horse fought for his life lying on the lawn. The owners started to consider euthanasia. After all Dusza couldn't suffer like that, and if it was impossible to help her... Yet, both COPD and sarcoids can and must be cured. They are not equivalent with a death sentence!
Duszyczka has joined our herd - she bore so much and she still wants to live so we can't deny her our help. We are sure that if the owners could afford her treatment they would undertake it by themselves. But things may go differently in life - we were the only chance for Duszyczka.
From her stable on the second end of Poland she went directly to dr Pawel Golonka's clinic in Gliwice where she undergoes treatment. Her transport was organized at night because of the terrible heat and the mare's problems with breathing.
