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local Saturday 11 March 2023
Nine Lives Aruba Foundation celebrates its 5th anniversary

(Oranjestad)—The Nine with 13 dogs.
Lives Aruba Foundation, 144 cats were under their
who is in charge of rescu- care last year, with 21 re-
ing cats and dogs from the siding in foster homes, 37 in
streets, celebrated its 5th their refuge and 87 on their
anniversary. Even though Colony Street.
the organization indicat- Geraldine assured that
ed itself that it has gone the organization was able
through different obstacles to meet with Crijojo Trap-
during the last few years, it pers, the Luna Foundation,
also assured that it has had SGT Pepper’s and United
many happy memories of Dogs Aruba at the Animal
having the opportunity to Welfare Alliance Aruba
improve the lives of cats (Awaa), where they estab-
and dogs on the island. lished a clinic for steriliza-
tion and castration only.
Nine Lives is a foundation They are currently waiting
founded by two Ameri- saving the lives of cats and Geraldine Kock, who is of the adoptions, other are for more people from the
cans, Terry Daily and Val- dogs. They have also pro- vice-president of the or- in charge of garage sales, U.S., The Netherlands and
erie Purdy Pyeron and moted humane treatment ganization, explained how marketing etc. England to come to Aruba
Aruban Geraldine Kock in for animals in order to pre- the idea to found a foun- The biggest challenge they to volunteer as vets every
collaboration with volun- vent cruelty and abandon- dation for the protection of face on Aruba is the lack other week.
teers who are dedicated in ment. cats came to be. Terry and of enough donations. The Last Saturday, they held
Valerie were frequent visi- majority of the donations their first Adoption Day
tors of the island and have they receive come from of this year at a pet shop,
both noticed that people other countries. Geraldine where 4 of the 10 cats pres-
paid more attention to stated that Aruba needs to ent were adopted. 2 left
dogs than cats. Though change its mentality, be- with families who have nev-
they lived back in the U.S., cause people often prefer er adopted pets before.
they were very passionate to spend their money at a Geraldine says that the im-
about their cause. For this bar or on other things, in- portance of adoption is to
reason, they asked Geral- stead of helping the foun- allow them as an organiza-
dine to manage the foun- dation. tion to keep rescuing cats
dation in Aruba back in At the end of 2022, they and dogs, because these
2015 while they look for do- announced that they have often suffer on the streets
nations and sponsorships in completed 203 cat adop- due to mistreatment and
the U.S. tions; 114 on Aruba, 87 in abandonment. With the
Nine Lives works to stop the U.S. and 2 in The Neth- organization, these ani-
overpopulation and the erlands. 147 cats were cas- mals can have a “second
abuse of especially cats. trated and sterilized, along chance.”q
They pushed for humane
treatment of animals and
the benefits of sterilizations
and castration for the ani-
mals. They emphasize that
people should sterilize the
cats and also offer them
refuge and care after find-
ing them on the streets until
they are able to be adopt-
ed by a new family.
As trappers, they need
to trap and collect the
cats, but they sometimes
let them go too. This is be-
cause they often find moth-
ers with big litters, so they
often sterilize the mothers
but then let them go back
to their litters. When Crijojo
trappers were unable to
house more cats and dogs
in their foundation, Nine
Lives was founded.
At the beginning, the foun-
dation had 12 volunteers.
Now, its family has growth
significantly and they have
about 80 volunteers in dif-
ferent countries in charge
of different areas. For ex-
ample, some are in charge