Fighting for life
For 20 years, the Centaurus Foundation has rescued horses, dogs, cats, cows, pigs, donkeys and many other animals across Europe and beyond. This World Animal Day, give them something they will truly feel: food, medicine and a safe place to live.
On October 4, World Animal Day, people all over the world stop to think about animals. So before you read on, think of one.
Maybe the dog who waited at the gate until you came home from school. The cat who always knew when you’d had a bad day and curled up beside you at exactly that moment. The horse on your grandparents’ farm who took an apple from your hand so gently you could barely feel his lips. A cow your family called by name, a rabbit, a parrot who learned to copy your laugh.
Maybe that animal is beside you today. Or maybe all that’s left is an old photo and that warm little ache when you think of them.
You know that feeling. It’s love, even if we rarely call it that.
What did that animal need from you? Not much. A full bowl, a dry place to sleep, a hand to stroke them, and someone to take them to the vet when something hurt. This is the oldest agreement we have with animals. We invited them into our homes, barns and stables thousands of years ago, and ever since, it has been up to us whether they are fed, healthy and safe. Wild animals, losing forests and rivers because of us, are counting on us too.
So take the love you feel for your animal and let it travel further. To animals you’ll never meet, in countries you may never visit. To every animal still waiting for their person.
Because not every animal has one. For 20 years, we’ve been going to the places where that person was missing.
Right now, as you read this
A dog on a chain is starting another night in an unheated kennel. The chain is barely longer than he is. That is his whole world.
A horse who worked for people for fifteen years has just heard the verdict: “too old.” Too old to work, but still worth something by the kilo.
A cow is calling all night for the calf taken from her a few hours after birth.
A pig nurses her piglets in a metal crate so narrow she can’t turn around.
A donkey on a tourist trail in Jordan carries one more person through the desert heat. He’ll get water in the evening, if someone remembers him.
A horse and a camel in Egypt work from dawn with wounds hidden under the saddle.
A dog pushed out of a car before a summer trip runs after it until it disappears. Then he sits down by the roadside and waits.
A hedgehog flees a burning field on scorched paws. And where war or floods have come, animals wait in empty houses for someone to come back and open the door.
Every one of them feels hunger, cold, pain and fear exactly the way the animal you thought of at the start would. And every one of them has a name, even if no one has given it to them yet.
20 years of answering calls that can’t wait until morning
The Centaurus Foundation was born from a single decision: when we see an animal suffering, we don’t walk on.
Since then, we’ve saved horses from slaughter, gone out on rescue calls, treated animals others had given up on, and stayed by their side long after the cameras were gone. We built Europe’s largest horse sanctuary, and it became home to every kind of animal with nowhere else to go. Today 3000+ animals live in our care.
We work across Europe, the UK and the USA, and our rescues reach Jordan, Egypt, South-East Asia and Congo. Help that comes to us from many countries goes wherever an animal has been waiting longest.
A rescue is not a single day. It’s the first night beside a stall, the first surgery, the first winter in a warm stable, and then every day after that, for years. Many of our animals are too old, too sick or too hurt for anyone to adopt. We stay with them for the rest of their lives.
A heart under a photo won’t feed a horse
On October 4, the internet will fill up with puppies, kittens and posts covered in hearts. It’s good that we remember. But animals in need will never see those posts. What they will feel is hay in the manger, medicine that takes the pain away, and dry bedding on a freezing night.
World Animal Day lasts 24 hours. Hunger, cold and fear don’t keep a calendar.
Anyone can help
You don’t need to live near us, own a horse or know anything about veterinary medicine. You might be 13 with some pocket money, or 80 and remember the horses that worked your grandparents’ fields. You might live in Toronto, Sydney or Cape Town, half a world away from the nearest stable.
Animals don’t know where you live or how old you are. All they know is whether someone came.
What your gift will do
€10: a bale of hay, a full day of food for a rescued horse
€25: a week of food for a dog after a rescue
€50: vaccinations and a checkup for an animal who has just arrived
€100: a farrier visit, so a horse can walk without pain again
€250: a rescue transport from a place of suffering to the safety of our sanctuary
Every gift carries the promise we make to each animal as we close the sanctuary gate behind them: you’re safe here.
Before you scroll on
Some people will scroll past this page. Others will decide that today, they’ll do more. You get to choose which one you are.
In a moment, this page will be lost among hundreds of others, and our phone will ring just like it always does. Please give what you can now.
Give in the name of the animal you thought of at the beginning. If you like, write their name in the comment with your donation, so every animal we’ve ever loved becomes part of this fundraiser.
Can’t give right now? Share this page. Send it to friends in other countries, family in another city, your grandma by text. One share can reach someone who was looking for a way to help.
With gratitude,
The Centaurus Foundation team
P.S. In the stables, winter always arrives before the calendar says it does, and €10 today puts a full day of hay in front of a rescued horse.
Campaign ends
October 12, 2026
