Across North Cyprus, stray and abandoned animals are an everyday reality. Dogs and cats can find themselves living on roadsides, around villages, close to restaurants and hotels, or surviving wherever they can find food, water and shelter. For healthy animals, life on the streets is difficult enough. For an animal that has been injured, disabled, abandoned when young or left requiring veterinary treatment, survival can become considerably more challenging.
That is where Freedom Cats and Dogs Sanctuary, found online at DomDog.org, is making a difference.
Based in Alsancak in North Cyprus, Freedom Sanctuary is a registered local charity dedicated to rescuing and caring for cats and dogs, with particular attention given to animals that are injured, disabled or otherwise unable to survive safely on the streets. Its work extends far beyond simply providing somewhere for unwanted animals to stay. Rescue, rehabilitation, veterinary treatment, sterilisation, fostering, adoption, education and lifelong sanctuary all form part of its mission.
More Than 170 Animals Rely on Freedom
The scale of the operation becomes apparent when looking at the numbers.
At the time of writing, Freedom’s website reports 108 dogs at the sanctuary and 65 cats at the shelter. It also reports that 52 animals have found permanent homes, while another 24 animals are permanent residents of Freedom Sanctuary.
Those figures represent considerably more than statistics.
Every animal entering a sanctuary creates an ongoing responsibility. Food has to be purchased every day. Fresh water must always be available. Kennels and living areas need cleaning and maintenance. Veterinary appointments have to be organised. Medication must be administered. Animals recovering from surgery require monitoring, while dogs need exercise, human interaction and socialisation.
Some animals arrive requiring relatively straightforward assistance before they can eventually be adopted. Others have much more complicated needs.
Freedom specifically opens its doors to disabled and injured cats and dogs that would struggle or be unable to survive independently on the streets.
For some, Freedom is therefore a temporary stopping point on the journey towards a new family.
For others, it becomes home.
A Sanctuary for Animals That May Never Be Adopted
One of the most important distinctions between an animal sanctuary and a conventional rehoming operation is what happens to the animals that cannot easily be rehomed.
Freedom recognises that adoption will not be the right outcome for every animal.
Some of its cats and dogs have disabilities or individual circumstances that make living outside the sanctuary inappropriate. Freedom consequently maintains a group of permanent residents rather than continually attempting to place every animal into a conventional home. Its website currently identifies 24 animals as permanent residents.
These animals still require everything any much-loved pet would need: food, shelter, veterinary treatment, medication where necessary, exercise, stimulation, companionship and human attention.
The difference is that Freedom itself effectively becomes their forever home.
Supporters who cannot adopt can therefore sponsor an animal, helping the sanctuary meet the costs associated with caring for that particular resident.
It is an important part of the sanctuary philosophy. Rescue does not necessarily end when the immediate emergency has passed. For an animal with lifelong needs, rescue can mean making a commitment that potentially lasts for the remainder of that animal’s life.
Rescue Is Only the Beginning
Finding an injured animal and getting it away from immediate danger is the most visible element of animal rescue, but it is only the beginning of the process.
An animal may subsequently require veterinary examinations, surgery, medication, wound management, vaccinations, parasite treatment, good nutrition and weeks or months of rehabilitation.
Freedom’s team works alongside veterinarians to help sick and injured animals, while sanctuary volunteers provide the daily care necessary once those animals return. The organisation describes team members Jeremy and Mark as caring for dogs while also collaborating with veterinarians, treating sick animals, arranging homes and helping construct enclosures. Paul and Cheryl Baylis similarly oversee aspects of cat welfare, veterinary visits and improvements to shelter conditions.
This is the less visible side of rescue work.
Saving an animal might begin with somebody stopping beside a road, picking up a frightened dog or taking an injured cat to a veterinarian. The real work can continue for months afterwards.
Finding Forever Homes
For animals capable of living happily as family pets, adoption is one of Freedom Sanctuary’s ultimate objectives.
Rather than simply removing animals from the streets, the sanctuary works to move suitable cats and dogs through rehabilitation and towards permanent homes.
Freedom maintains adoption listings through DomDog.org, where potential adopters can learn about animals looking for families. The sanctuary says its dogs available for adoption are prepared to move into their new homes, while rescued cats and kittens are also presented to prospective adopters.
Every successful adoption has two benefits.
Most importantly, an animal that may once have been abandoned, injured or homeless gains something completely different: a family.
But adoption also creates space and resources within the sanctuary.
When one rehabilitated animal leaves for a permanent home, Freedom potentially gains the capacity to help another animal waiting outside its gates.
The sanctuary’s 2024 figures provide a good indication of that work: 17 dogs and 12 cats found loving homes during the year.
Twenty-nine successful adoptions mean twenty-nine individual stories that ended very differently from how they may have begun.
Tackling the Problem Before Another Animal Needs Rescuing
Perhaps one of Freedom Sanctuary’s most significant projects happens before an animal ever requires a sanctuary place.
Freedom operates a spay and neuter programme for stray cats and dogs in North Cyprus. According to its published 2024 review, 365 animals were spayed or neutered during that year alone.
That figure matters enormously.
Sanctuaries cannot solve uncontrolled stray populations simply by building more kennels.
Every unsterilised stray animal potentially contributes to another generation. Puppies and kittens are born into an environment where there may already be insufficient homes, food and veterinary care available. Some survive and reproduce themselves, allowing the cycle to continue.
Sterilisation tackles the problem at its source.
Freedom says its programme provides people in North Cyprus with a route through which a stray cat or dog can be spayed or neutered.
The effect of such work is difficult to measure solely by counting the animals treated because its real impact includes animals that are never born into homelessness in the first place.
A sanctuary might dramatically change one dog’s life by rescuing it.
A successful sterilisation programme can potentially prevent generations of future animals from experiencing the same circumstances.
Education Could Be Just as Important
Freedom also recognises that improving animal welfare requires changing attitudes as well as rescuing animals.
The organisation is developing educational programmes intended to teach children about caring for animals and respecting nature.
This is a longer-term approach to animal welfare.
Children who learn that animals require responsible ownership, veterinary care, appropriate food, sterilisation, kindness and long-term commitment can carry those attitudes into adulthood.
A child learning how to treat a dog properly today may become the adult who chooses to adopt rather than abandon an animal years later.
Rescue organisations therefore have the potential to influence far more animals than those physically living inside their shelters.
The Volunteers Behind the Sanctuary
Freedom Sanctuary was founded by Nulten Oral, whom the organisation describes as the person responsible for establishing its core goals and bringing together the original team.
She is supported by people performing very different roles throughout the organisation. Debbie Bird helps coordinate administrative work; Paul and Cheryl Baylis are involved with cat welfare and veterinary care; while Jeremy and Mark work extensively with the dogs, including treatment, rehoming and enclosure construction.
Then there are volunteers.
For a sanctuary containing more than 100 dogs alongside dozens of cats, volunteers are not simply an added bonus. They are an essential resource.
Freedom itself identifies a lack of volunteers as one of the biggest problems facing its cat and dog sanctuaries.
Dogs need walking. Animals need feeding. Living areas need maintaining. Cats and dogs need human interaction and socialisation. Animals recovering from trauma often need patience and repeated positive contact with people before they can confidently enter a family environment.
Volunteer Jayne, for example, is highlighted by Freedom for her work with disabled dogs, spending time walking, playing with and providing companionship to animals requiring additional care.
For people living in or spending extended periods in North Cyprus, volunteering therefore provides a very direct way of helping.
Time can be every bit as valuable as money.
Fostering Animals During Recovery
Not every rescued animal should immediately enter a busy sanctuary environment.
An animal recovering from an operation may need somewhere quiet. A frightened animal may benefit from experiencing ordinary household life. Puppies, kittens or vulnerable animals may need more intensive supervision than a sanctuary can practically provide.
This is why Freedom also encourages people to become foster carers.
The organisation explains that cats and dogs recovering from operations regularly require temporary foster homes until they have recovered.
Fostering creates an invaluable bridge between rescue and adoption.
The sanctuary remains responsible for the broader rescue effort, while an individual or family temporarily provides the animal with something difficult to reproduce inside even the best shelter: a normal home environment.
The Financial Reality of Animal Rescue
Compassion may drive an animal sanctuary, but compassion does not pay veterinary invoices.
Operating a rescue centre containing this many animals inevitably costs money.
Food alone represents a substantial recurring expense. Add veterinary treatment, medication, operations, sterilisation, shelter construction, maintenance and everyday supplies, and the financial requirements become considerable.
Freedom explains that donations contribute towards medical bills, food, shelter and other essentials required by its animals.
The organisation also operates a charity shop, providing another way for supporters to contribute either by donating suitable items or purchasing goods. Sponsorship allows supporters to contribute towards individual animals, while direct donations help support the wider operation.
The sanctuary’s official donation page provides options for contributions in both Turkish lira and British pounds.
For an organisation caring for animals every day of the year, regular support can be particularly valuable because the bills do not disappear when fundraising slows down.
Animals still need breakfast tomorrow morning.
How People Can Help Freedom Sanctuary
One of the encouraging things about Freedom is that helping does not necessarily mean adopting a dog or writing a large cheque.
Someone who wants another animal in their family can consider adoption.
Someone unable to make that permanent commitment might foster an animal recovering from treatment.
People living locally can volunteer and help with the physical work involved in caring for the animals.
Supporters further afield can donate or sponsor a permanent resident.
People in North Cyprus can support the charity shop, help fundraising activities and spread awareness of animals looking for homes.
And responsible residents can support sterilisation efforts that reduce the number of unwanted animals requiring rescue in future.
Each action addresses a different part of the same problem.
Why Freedom Sanctuary Matters to North Cyprus
Animal rescue can sometimes be judged by a simple number: how many animals were saved?
Freedom Sanctuary demonstrates why the answer is more complicated.
A dog rescued from an accident and treated by a veterinarian has been helped.
A disabled dog given a permanent sanctuary home has been helped.
A cat placed with a loving family has been helped.
An animal temporarily fostered while recovering from surgery has been helped.
A stray sterilised and returned safely has been helped.
A child taught responsible animal ownership may ultimately help animals for decades.
These activities form different parts of the same animal-welfare ecosystem.
Freedom is simultaneously dealing with the immediate consequences of abandonment and injury while attempting to reduce the likelihood that the same problems will continue indefinitely.
365 Sterilisations, 29 Adoptions and Hundreds of Animals Cared For
Freedom’s 2024 figures perhaps provide the clearest picture of what a relatively small sanctuary and its supporters can accomplish.
During that year, 365 animals were spayed or neutered, 17 dogs were adopted and 12 cats found homes.
Meanwhile, the daily work continued.
Animals were fed.
Dogs were walked.
Veterinary visits were made.
Enclosures were maintained.
Injured animals recovered.
Permanent residents continued receiving care.
New emergencies inevitably arrived.
That is the reality of running an animal sanctuary. There is rarely a point at which the work is finished.
DomDog.org: Meet the Animals Behind the Numbers
Perhaps the best way to understand Freedom Sanctuary is not simply to read statistics about it, but to meet the animals themselves.
Through DomDog.org, Freedom introduces the cats and dogs available for adoption as well as animals that will remain permanent sanctuary residents. Potential supporters can also find information about adoption, fostering, sponsorship, volunteering and donations.
Behind each photograph is an individual animal whose circumstances could have produced a very different outcome.
Some arrived injured.
Some were abandoned.
Some live with disabilities.
Some will eventually leave Freedom with new families.
Others may never leave at all.
For those permanent residents, Freedom Sanctuary is no longer simply a rescue centre.
It is home.
And for the next frightened, injured or abandoned cat or dog that needs help somewhere in North Cyprus, keeping that home operating could make all the difference.
Freedom Cats and Dogs Sanctuary is based in Alsancak, North Cyprus and identifies itself as registered charity DER 3K193. More information about its animals, rescue programmes, volunteering, fostering, sponsorship and adoption is available through DomDog.org – Freedom Cats and Dogs Sanctuary.
