Cairo opens its first shelter for stray dogs, with room for 700 and two operating theatres
Vets will vaccinate and sterilise the dogs, and healthy ones will be offered for adoption. The governor plans more shelters if it works.
Cairo — Cairo has opened its first shelter for stray dogs, a 5,000 square metre site east of the Autostrad road in El Tebbin, in the south of the city.
Local Development and Environment Minister Manal Awad, Agriculture Minister Alaa Farouk and Cairo Governor Ibrahim Saber toured the shelter on Monday with representatives of civil society and animal welfare groups.
Inside the shelter
The shelter can hold about 700 dogs in 112 rooms, each housing up to three. It has two equipped operating theatres, a veterinary pharmacy, isolation rooms for sick animals, green spaces, an exercise area and two pools used for treatment and to cool the dogs in summer. A team of vets will examine the dogs, sterilise them and vaccinate them, including against rabies.
Vaccination and sterilisation
Awad called it an important step towards managing stray dogs with scientific and sustainable methods that balance public health and safety with animal welfare, and described the problem as a shared responsibility of the state, civil society and animal welfare groups. Farouk said the government's approach relies on vaccination against rabies and sterilisation to curb disease and uncontrolled breeding, and that it would keep training vets to run those programmes.
Up for adoption
Saber said the shelter was a first phase, which the governorate plans to repeat in other districts if it succeeds. Dogs will be offered for adoption once their health has been checked and they have all the required vaccinations and certificates.
Source: Daily News Egypt, November 2026.
