25/08/2026
DAHAB CATS IS CLOSING
After nine years of rescue work, Dahab Cats will permanently close its doors to new admissions and focus entirely on the approximately 120 cats and kittens already in our care.
We will dedicate our remaining resources to caring for our disabled, vulnerable and long-term residents, while continuing to find suitable adopters and loving homes wherever possible.
This means we will no longer be able to:
- Accept sick, injured or abandoned animals
- Provide veterinary treatment or financial support for street animals
- Offer emergency care or respite
- Take in cats or kittens under any circumstances
This is an incredibly painful decision, but it has become unavoidable.
I have dedicated my entire retirement to animal welfare, including the last seven years building and running Dahab Cats. I have worked up to 15 hours every day, spent more than £100,000 of my own money and made enormous sacrifices in my relationships with family and friends.
I am now 72 years old, living with chronic illness and completely exhausted. I no longer have the physical, emotional or financial capacity to continue carrying the responsibility for every sick and vulnerable animal brought to our door.
Recent events and the fallout following the breakdown of our working relationship with a veterinarian—who expected individual payment of thousands of Egyptian pounds for treating each sick street cat brought to the shelter—have made an already impossible situation even more difficult.
Dahab Cats was created to help animals without anyone to pay for them. However, we cannot continue providing an open-ended rescue and veterinary service without the people, funding and professional support required to sustain it.
Closing our doors does not mean abandoning the animals who already depend upon us. It means protecting them.
Our responsibility now is to the 120 cats and kittens currently in our care. They need food, medication, safety, stability and loving homes. From this point forward, every ounce of our energy and every available resource will be devoted to them.
Please respect that our doors are now permanently closed. If you find a sick or injured animal, you will need to contact a local veterinarian directly.
Thank you to everyone who has genuinely supported Dahab Cats, volunteered with us, adopted from us or helped us care for animals over the years. I am deeply proud of what we have achieved and heartbroken that it has come to this. I will continue to need your support.
But I cannot sacrifice what remains of my health—and the security of the 120 animals already depending on me—by continuing to carry a responsibility that no one person should ever have been expected to carry alone.
