What We Do

VARJUPAIKADE MTÜ

• Our vision: Every pet has a responsible home.
• Our mission: We help pets that have lost their homes by giving them care and shelter. We find new, responsible homes for the pets in our care. We offer advice and support to pet owners.
• Our core values: We care about animals. We respect and support all people and animals. We are open to cooperation.
• Our goals: Pets are taken into families responsibly and, as a first choice, from our organisation. Instead of abandoning an animal, pet owners turn to our organisation for help and support. Our organisation's centres and shelters offer a friendly environment that is free from fear, stress and frustration and that ensures the wellbeing of our animals, staff, volunteers and clients alike.

Varjupaikade MTÜ was founded in early 2007. We operate a centre and six animal shelters across Estonia: Läänemaa, Pärnu, Saaremaa, Tallinn, Viljandi and Võru. Over the course of our work we have helped more than 26,000 animals into homes. We are a close-knit family and, day after day, week after week, we work for the good of homeless animals. We employ more than 60 wonderful people across Estonia. Our shelters may look different, but our core values are the same. We are one organisation, and thanks to our nationwide network we are far stronger in what we do.

The organisation's management board has three members: Anneli Matsi, Merike Torm and Triinu Priks.

We are a member of the EU Dog & Cat Alliance and the Network of Estonian Nonprofit Organizations. In our work we are guided by the code of ethics for non-governmental organisations and by good practice in fundraising. We have been awarded the volunteer-friendly organisation label.

We are cooperation partners for local governments

Our aim is to provide the best possible care for animals that have lost their homes, and for this reason we are contractual partners for several dozen local governments across Estonia, from whose territories ownerless animals, or animals that have escaped from their owners, come to us. From the territories of the local governments we have contracts with, we can take in animals and give them the help they need, thanks to the fact that these local governments cover the basic initial upkeep costs of the animals for the first 14 days in the shelter. After two weeks, all costs relating to the animals are borne by us. We ask representatives of local governments wishing to enter into a contract to contact our managing director, Anneli Matsi (tel 53869060 or anneli.matsi@varjupaik.ee).

If we took in animals from every town and rural municipality, we would be forced to euthanise a great many of them, as we would lack the means to keep and treat them. We ask citizens who care about animals to turn to their own local government to stress the importance of cooperating with the local animal shelter.

We are looking for new homes

Our shelters provide shelter for a hundred dogs at a time and five times as many cats. In addition, we have had to house turtles, rabbits, rats, squirrels, guinea pigs, ferrets, chickens and many other animals and birds. At the shelter, every animal undergoes a veterinary check and receives parasite treatment and the necessary vaccinations. Before going to a new home, all of them are microchipped and as many as possible are also spayed or neutered.