Animal Lovers! Join us for day out with your pooch. Anyone can attend (even if you aren’t adopting) and don’t forget your old bag of dog food (full or empty) to be exchanged for a bag of Pedigree South Africa! Click image to RSVP.
Whose up for the Pedigree South Africa challenge? Click here or image below now, and you can WIN a year’s supply of Pedigree for your pooch….and go!!!!!! 
Good luck!!
In light of Mandela Day this year, avid animal lover, Christy, has decided to donate 67 minutes of her time EVERYDAY for a year to a worthy cause. “My mission is to create beautifully hand-drawn portraits of your ‘fur-babies’.”
At a cost of ONLY R250, you will receive a wonderful keepsake of your precious pet, and know that the money spent will go directly to Ark Animal Centre. “I am dedicating my time to a worthy cause as these little pups need all the help they can get.” says Christy.
For more information please email preciousportraitsproject@gmail.com. Please spread the word and share this poster… Lets do something good!!
On 13 June 2015, the team from 15 on Seventh hosted an open day in aid of Ark Animal Centre, and raised over R10,000 for our rescue puppies!!!
It was a great family day that saw the beautiful Mrs South Africa 2015, Sarah Kate Scott arrive along with the elegant 2016 finalists who all had their share of puppy love!
As a charity, we are often approached with companies or people who “want to help us” but really they just want to piggy back off our fan base to promote their business, and we get R1/R10 etc per like/referral. There are very, VERY few people who genuinely will host an entire day in aid of our shelter, and not expect anything in return. We are so thankful to Dr Mark Steinmann and his team for being one of the few truly good people who gave without expectation or T’s & C’s. We feel so lucky to be surrounded by such incredible animal lovers. Thank you sooooooo much!!!
Big, big thank you to the following companies and people who made the day possible:
The Local Grill for sponsoring the delicious burgers
Holstein Meats for the boeries and pregos!
The beautiful Sarah-Kate Scott – Mrs South Africa 2015 and Mrs South Africa and all the finalists!!!
The uber talented Debra Lee Photography
Last but not least to SkinCeuticals, DermaQuest, Vita Liberata, Rogue Royalty, illy, Hotpod Yoga, and everyone that came to show your support!
Every now and then something happens that is proof that showcases the good and kindness in the world… Marika Gothlin is an Swedish immigrant, and last year for the first time in her life adopted a dog; a beautiful 6 month old Biewer Yorkshire Terrier (Noah) from Ark Animal Centre. To her surprise Noah molded into her lifestyle and stole her heart.
Often speechless as words cannot describe how amazing it is to have him in her life, Marika expresses how wonderful Noah is with her 3 daughters and husband, Noah has become part of their family. In December she cancelled her trip to Sweden primarily because Must Love Dogs, boutique hotel was fully booked and she couldn’t bear to leave him with anyone else.
Ark was lucky to have received 3 Basset Hound Puppies on the 26 April they were quarantined and the little male (Goerge) had a very strange eye condition, after visiting Palm Gardens Vet it was clear that the puppy was in need of an expensive operation to remove a Dermoid in the eye. On the second of May Marika and her family popped into Ark Animal Centre, for a visit, they had booked another little Yorkie as they felt Noah needed a friend. However whilst spending time with the pups in the kennels, they noticed little George and Tracy explained the nature of his condition. Marika asked if she could foster little George for a week. On the 6th May Marika returned to Ark and to our surprise had taken George for the operation on her account. An amazing lady with a very warm heart has given this little Basset Hound and opportunity to a beautiful life. He was adopted by a loving family and is now living in the lap of luxury. While Marika ended up adopting another one of our rescue pooches, Sammy. Big thank you to Marika Gothlin and her amazing family!!!!!!!
Noah and Sammy adopted from Ark Animal Centre, September 2014 and May 2015.
Hayley on the day she was adopted from Ark Animal Centre
A lovely update from Diane on her Ark baby, Hayley, who she adopted a year ago from Ark Animal Centre, and how she filled the lives and hearts of a family in mourning…sometimes the “rescue dog” isn’t the one being saved. Read their story below 🙂
Hey all… So it’s nearly a year since I adopted Hayley. At first she was a major pain and chewed my bed, Oakleys and more…. But she has crept into the heart of her big brother, granny, aunties, uncles and pretty much everyone. Most importantly, my heart.
Unfortunately she has irritable bowel syndrome which had earned her the nickname: Princess Poopy Pants. When she farts and you are driving, you find a park. FAST!! Hayley got her Bronze Canine Good Citizen in November despite everyone (including me, excluding the KUSA judge) thinking she could not do it. She is excelling as an obedience dog and will be doing her first obedience completion next month.
Training aside… She has become my cuddle bug and K’s best friend. KD has lost a load of weight with having her around and hates when she has school cause she is not around. For my family, Hayley has been a healing tool after the loss of my dad. I fostered her a week after he died and she crept into our hearts. My sister in law is a cat person and actually had to get a dog after Hayley came into our lives!!!
Mom often says how much Dad would have loved her. I think she would have adored him and think he may have stollen her from me. Thank you for recommending this very special girl to me. She has changed my world and refocused my whole family at a time when we needed something more than sympathy.
Written by: Diane Logie
This incredible 4 minute video will give you an inside understanding of who and what the Ark Animal Centre is, and how you can get involved and help make a difference 🙂
Click this link to view it: https://youtu.be/sovmFsna_NI
Big thank you to the following people who made this video possible:
Eilidh Goosen
Rick Joaquim of Duck Rabbit Studios
Andrew John Lonie
Kasmario Fankis
C.A. Van Aswegen of FiX Post Production
Adam Lomas & Brian Mullany of Fireball Productions
You’re Invited to our CHRISTMAS CARNIVAL!!!
– 14 December 2014
– 10am to 4pm
– Ark Animal Centre, 17 Howard Avenue, Chartwell
– R20 per adult, kids under 13 years old free
– Stands R150 each
– Email kristyotto1@gmail.com or call 0828914242 to book a stand
We are going to have a Build-A-Stocking for your pet stall, Hashtag Smoothies will be selling refreshments, soda station, boerewors rolls, candy floss, popcorn etc, some gift stalls and a kids activity station with face painting, colouring in competitions and more 🙂
Friendly dogs welcome! Cash only! Family fun day!
We were lucky enough to find ourselves surrounded by the very brainy and enthusiastic 2nd year Engineering students from the University of Pretoria, who came to the shelter to complete their community service for Tuks. They took it upon themselves to designand build our drainage system for our Puppy Central kennels. They even cleaned the kennels beforehand to understand exactly what problems we were encountering. Below is a few words from Michael Garvie, on why this project was so important to the team 🙂 Photo’s below.
“We are a group of Engineering students from the University of Pretoria. As part of one of our modules, we are required to complete a community service project of our choice. The group decided we wanted to be able to use the knowledge we had obtained thus far in our degree while aiding a needy organisation. We stumbled across Ark Animal Centre thanks to one of our members having recently adopted a puppy from AAC. With the chance to not only test ourselves but also aid needy animals, we agreed that this would be the project for us.
Due to the slope of the land AAC is situated on, heavy rains are a danger for the bottom kennel which had been flooded before, due to rain. We decided we would design and build a drainage system in each kennel, which would allow the rain to be channeled away from the puppies and their kennels, and into the drainage system. It took us a week of hard thinking and even harder work, but we managed to finish. We had put the drainage system into action and secured a mesh over it to prevent puppies getting into the drains. Every test we tried showed the drain to be fully operational and more than able to handle heavy rains, even with the slope of the land. We would like to thank management at Ark Animal Centre for allowing us the opportunity to aid them. We would come work again in a heartbeat. “
From all of our puppies and staff at the shelter, we would like to say a massive thank you to this team of young South African’s for their time, commitment and passion they had during this project. They came in with a fully mapped out plan, followed it to the tee AND completed everything on their own, leaving nothing for us to “clean up” afterwards. We are so grateful that we have a fully functional drainage system now that is working phenomenally well. We are so thankful and appreciative of all your efforts, and you are all most welcome to come back at anytime 🙂
Andreia who is a Grade 3 student at Assumption Convent took it upon herself to raise funds and awareness for the abused and abandoned puppies at our rescue shelter. This is her story…
Firstly, I just want to again say thank you for making Andreia’s day so special, and definitely something she will remember always!!! She was absolutely exhausted …struggled to get her up for school this morning, and I can definitely hear the conversations around the playground at school today!!!
Just though I had to share her story!! I have a really special little girl. Andreia calls herself the “Dog Whisperer” … and she says that she can talk “Dog”!!!
Let me begin at the beginning … It all started a few weeks ago when I came home from work and told Andreia about a friend of mine at work, Simone, who had just fostered and then adopted a puppy from the Ark Animal Centre. In this discussion I mentioned how important it was to try and adopt a puppy instead of buying one as there are so many rescue dogs in need of a home. I also told her that volunteers can go and spend time with the puppies and play with them at the Centre. She immediately asked if we could go through one Saturday to volunteer to spend time with puppies. I said that maybe we can donate some puppy food to the Centre …and that is how it all started!
She got very excited and said that maybe she can ask her friends at school, Assumption Convent which is in Malvern East, and all her family for donations for the puppies too and to also make them aware of rather adopt a puppy instead of buying one. I was amazed at her as she is currently only in Grade 3 … and said that that was a good idea and that we would see what we could do. She mentioned nothing further after this and I thought that she would just forget about the idea. Let alone did I know how serious she was about this .. two weeks later she brought up the subject again and asked me if I could help create pamphlets for her to hand out at school and for a box to set up in her classroom. I think that she had even spoken to her teacher about this but I told her that before she can do any of this, she would need to ask permission from her school principal first. She was so passionate about getting this up and running that she burst into tears at the prospect of having to wait for permission. It took me about half an hour to calm her down and then I help her (here and there) to write a letter to her principal. Attached is her letter that she wrote to her principal and also the pamphlet that she asked me to help her draft to hand out at school. Unfortunately her school only gave her permission to collect donations from the two Grade 3 classes and not the whole school. She was happy with this because as long as she is able to collect …even the little bit that she can, this makes her happy that she has achieved something for the doggies.
Two weeks later, after asking permission, her principal called her aside (and I received a call from the principal) to tell her that they had decided to do a Civi’s Day at school and all the proceeds from the Civi’s day collected would go towards Andreia’s drive for collections for the Ark Animal Centre. She was so excited and happy and when I got home couldn’t wait to tell me her news. The two Grade 3 classes collected R390,00 which was then handed to Andreia by the principal for the Ark Animal Centre. A number of girls in her class also gave her some food donation or dog bowls or doggie toys for her to start her collection with and every day when I got home from her she would show me the donations she received.
We even went further …her birthday was coming up and Simone suggested the Ark Animal Centre for her birthday party …which was just the cherry on the top of the cake. I got home and mentioned this and she was just over the moon. The next day the talk on the playground at school was all about Ark Animal Centre and her party. I got girls coming up to me asking please can I go to Andreia’s birthday party …and how much does it cost to adopt a puppy etc. Well she said that whoever comes to her party must please bring a donations of doggie food, puppy food or puppy treats. She was eventually able to raise R541,00 and a R100,00 of which was one of her birthday gifts that she insisted gets donated toward Ark Animals.
She would like to send thanks to her school, Assumption Convent, for granting her permission to fulfil this dream that she had and a very big thank you to Mrs Zambon, her primary school principal who helped give permission. She would also like to thank the Grade 3K and Mrs Keller and Grade 3M and Mrs McCormack as well as all her school friends, family friends and her special family for helping her with this project which was …and still is so close to her heart.
As her mother …well I am so blessed with this little Angel that God blessed me with 9 years ago and my heart is so full of thanks for this special gift of …Andreia!!! She teaches me and her dad and her older siblings things every day that we never thought such a young soul can teach us!!!!
THANK YOU ANDREIA!!! From all the Ark puppies!!!
The Crawford Preparatory School held their Cake and Candy sale recently where all proceeds made were donated to Ark Animal Centre. The day was brilliant and the school was absolutely delighted with the response. It was a huge success and they sold out of everything!
The final tally was R3958.05!!! Teacher, Jeanette Fuchs said it was “Not to bad for the efforts of 23 primary school children and one teacher.” 🙂
The school also did a presentation to everyone in assembly, included Ark in their newsletter and even popped into the shelter for a visit! They are an amazing group of kids, and Crawford can be proud to have such impressive students.
From all of our Ark puppies and staff we are so thankful to Jeanette and the students at Crawford Preparatory School for including us in their Charity Aid project. We are so grateful to you for thinking of us and showing such kindness to our puppies ❤
Below are some lovely pictures from Jeanette of the Cake Sale and their visit to Ark 🙂
Ark Animal Centre 