Welcome to Apaba

Are you looking for...

A jogging companion?

Company to keep you safe?

Company to watch tv?

Company for your family?

Did you know?

  1. Many of our dogs left the shelter to make people happy: The lucky ones.
  2. Did you know that if you adopt one of our senior dogs Catarina Pires will offer you a week-end for two (and your new friend, of course!) in her wonderful home by the lake? Apartamento Rio Zêzere. Out of season, it is the perfect way to bond, tasting nature and freedom together. Of course, that is not the reason that will make you chose a calmer, mature dog, with a well established personality, but it is a nice little bonus, isn't it?
  3. To help anybody that would like to adopt one of APABA’s senior dogs but fears the veterinary costs involved, our partner Centro Veterinário Encosta das Maias kindly offers: a free geriatric check-up corresponding to the first consultation, with a detailed physical exam, followed by a 10% discount on all veterinary care for that particular animal adopted from APABA. Come visit our senoirs, nice, calm, with their well established personalities, that will be so very thankful for a second opportunity to make humans happy.
We will not be able to continue to help animals that have a chance to survive, and well, if we don’t have money for that. We don’t have any funds, any subsidies, money comes, exclusively, from people that want the animals to have veterinary care and trust us to give them the best we can. If you don’t help us, we can’t help, either. If you want to contribute for our veterinary bills so that we can continue to treat the animals that come to us, sometimes in a desperate situation, please donate what you can so that we don’t have to give up on them: IBAN - PT 50 0010 00003592193000128 SWIFT – BBPIPTPL

The story of Apaba

APABA is a non-profit association legally constituted whose main objective is to identify and collect abandoned, ill-treated and neglected animals, recovering them, sterilizing them and promoting their responsible adoption. The association is chaired by Ana Baena, has 2 employees and about 50 effective members. It has more than a hundred dogs under its care and also provides support to those who take care of street cats.

When some 20 years ago Ana Baena decided to settle in Golegã, several dogs started appearing in the farmhouse of Casal Branco. Over time, the numbers became unmanageable and Ana decided to take them to the municipal kennel. There she was faced with the terrible sight of kennels of that time (which have not yet completely disappeared in Portugal but became rarer) and decided to revive a dormant association that had been created years ago in Golegã by Conceição Moita and her friends. Through a protocol with the municipality, APABA began to manage the municipal kennel and one of its first concerns was the sterilization of all bitches. After a few years, Ana Baena built a shelter on her property, where dogs, much more numerous than those in the municipal kennel, are treated, sterilized and prepared for adoption. Most of their food comes from collections made by volunteers in supermarkets, sometimes in surrounding counties as the calls for help don’t respect administrative borders. Veterinary care is provided by a veterinarian who visits the shelter every week.

The great difficulty is finding good adopters for all dogs. For this reason, in recent times adoptions abroad have been sought, in countries where policies and social habits of pet sterilization, with decades of existence, make it that, unlike Portugal, there are more people looking for a dog than dogs available for adoption. This entails additional costs for APABA because, in addition to passports, it is necessary to carry out analyzes so that the animals do not carry diseases that do not exist in those countries. Increasingly, we also try to give dogs for adoption the basic skills to live in harmony with humans in order to reduce returns to the shelter.

I want to adopt a dog

All adoptions are different, because all dogs and people are different. Call us or send an email if you want to visit us or to get more information about a dog that caught your attention.

I want to help

There are many ways to help Apaba and its dogs: with donations, that help pay for veterinary care, detergents, small repairs, or with food, as they eat everyday; with lifts by car or even by plane (we are often looking for flight buddies); with walks, that take our dogs out of the shelter and teach them how to behave in various situations; with fostering puppies or adult dogs that need to learn how to live in a home before adoption. If you enjoy the company of dogs and think you can help them in any way, get in touch with us!

Donations

IBAN PT50 0010 000035921930001 28
SWIFT CODE BBPIPTPL