In Kyong gi province, Goyang City, grandfather Kim Jung Ho recently put out a call for urgent help for his shelter because of his failing health. He wants someone to take care of or take over of his shelter for stray and abandoned animals.

Presently he is the sole caretaker of 127 stray and abandoned dogs. We are not sure what will happen about this worrying problem.

Grandpa Kim Jung Ho aged 68 has been caring for the stray and abandonned dogs for the past 30 years. A month ago, he was diagnosed with late stage mouth cancer. He doesn't have money for surgery and his desperate situation for himself and his 127 dogs weighs heavily him.

He lives in an old house in Goyang city, Won Heung Dong. He gets only 200,000 won as a stipend for allowance and has no other means to make money.

He has managed to get by because animal advocates on the internet and veterinary clinics have been helping him care for the animals.

Kim explains that for the last 30 years he has been picking up strays off the streets, since he couldn't just ignore them, and they all became his family. That's how he got his nickname "Father of Strays."

Sadly, he lost his own faithful companion recently and has been heart broken. He does not wish to lose all the other dogs under his care.

Mr. Kim remembers the terrible IMF period that saw a rise in dog abandonment, "People bring puppies into their lives because they are so cute, then abandon them when they grow up, get old, or get sick. I really dislike those kinds of irresponsible people," said Mr. Kim. We couldn't agree with him more.

KARA is organizing to send food and supplies to Mr. Kim by February 8.

Update: February 6, 2010

A huge amount of food and supplies were delivered to Grandpa Kim's shelter in early February.

He received 300 kgs of food brought with 500,000 won of the money raised by KARA at an end of year party. A person donated 340,000 won for more food, rice and ginseng for Mr. Kim.

This shelter is facing more problems than just Mr. Kim's failing health. He does not trust anyone to take his dogs!

That means the dogs cannot be adopted. This unfortunate situation does not give them much of a future.

Mr. Kim is also against volunteers helping out. According to him, all volunteers do is talk too much!

While it is good the dogs are in his capable hands, the future could bring some difficulties all at once, if his illness should become worse.

It might seem to some that Mr. Kim is dangerously close to being an animal hoarder. Thankfully, however, there are enough people to monitor the situation and ensure things don't get out of hand.