About APAN

APAN was founded in the summer 1997 with the principal objective to take care of some of the many abandoned domestic animals in the region of Anoia in Catalonia, and also to work on changing people's attitudes towards animals. APAN is a non-profit organisation with very sparse resources, financed mainly by donations by its members and relying fully on volunteer work.

Current projects

APAN's main projects right now, besides fighting for survival, are:

• To finish our new shelter in Òdena. It will be so much better for the dogs than the current premises, and we will also have a 'school' section for children to visit and learn about animals. This way we hope to help alter people's way of thinking of animals in the long run.
• To continue being a main actor in our region (unfortunately often the only one) in pushing for animal's rights and enforcement of the animal protection laws that exist but are generally not applied. As part of these efforts we try to help people that want to report animal mistreatment and abandonment.
• To extend our cooperation with other animal protection organisations, locally and internationally.

The policies of APAN

• The association accepts euthanasia but only in those cases where the animal is suffering from a deadly illness.
• APAN thinks that killing animals because they are old, without concrete breed or simply because its room can be the home of another animal with more possibilities to be adopted, is not Euthanasia, it is a crime, a Genocide.
• The members of the association APAN do not agree with and condemn very hard, the vision of the majority of City Councils, which consider abandoned dogs and cats a health problem for the city environment and inhabitants, and do not care what is going to happen to these animals. Their only priority is to have the streets “clean”.
• The members condemn those City Councils which have agreements with public dog pounds without taking into account the policies of some of those places where the objective is to make money, as much as possible, from the suffering of abandoned animals.
• We also condemn those City Councils that pretend not to know about the place where they, paying, send the abandoned animals, accepting an agreement without visiting and periodically checking the installations, the staff and the welfare of the animals.
• We invite, and offer our collaboration to the City Councils and local government to start campaigns to make people aware of the responsibility of having animals and about the importance of neutering/spaying their animals in order to avoid more abandoned animals, and risk rehomings.
• Our goal as an association is to rehome our dogs and cats vaccinated, neutered and identificated. For that we try to get all the economical help we need.
• The most important things for the members are: First that the animals are happy in the shelter. We try not to have them in cages but in courtyards with individual kennels, healthy and well fed with all the veterinary cares required. Second not to be selective. All animals have the same rights and they have to be treated in the same way. We do not agree with the policy of giving a second chance only to those animals with pure breed or puppies. The animals will be entering the shelter at the same time as we find them in the streets if there is enough room.
• The association will announce all cases of mistreatment, transferring the denounces we receive to the legal department of animal protection and helping people with their legal doubts and giving information.
• When the animal enter in the shelter, it will be in quarantine for 10 days receiving the visit of veterinarians and vaccinated. They are deparasitated when arriving at the shelter. Once vaccinated they remain 8 days in quarantine before joining the others. We try, depending on the economical situation, to neuter/spay the dogs.