CCF UK and Unicorn Ingredients

by 4 May 2022

At CCF UK, we’re proud of the many partnerships we’ve formed with organisations as committed to species conservation as we are. This includes our new partners, Unicorn Ingredients, who are helping to fund our livestock guarding dog (LGD) programme.

There is also a very special side our partnership with Unicorn… It’s Founder, Frank Horan, and his wife Sally, sadly lost their daughter Jenny in 2017. Jenny was passionate about travel, conservation and animals – especially cheetahs and dogs. CCF’s LGD programme therefore seemed a fitting focus for the partnership, and a unique way to celebrate Jenny’s life.

In case you don’t know, the LGD programme plays a vital role in reducing human-wildlife in Namibia. Our ‘paws-on-the-ground’ partners are placed on farms to protect livestock. They use their loud bark and imposing presence to warn off predators such as cheetahs, which stops farmers from shooting, trapping or killing them. By safeguarding farmers’ livelihoods, the LGDs are also safeguarding a future for cheetahs.

The programme has been hugely successful, reducing livestock losses in areas where it is active by 90% or more! It has become so popular with farmers, there is now a long waiting list. So all at CCF were delighted to hear we would be receiving a new canine hero puppy from our friends in Germany. Given that this is one of Unicorn’s office locations, we also thought what better way to mark their support and celebrate Jenny’s great loves, than to name the new pup after her! Funds from the partnership will be used to assist in the care of Jenny while at CCF, along with all our other breeding dogs.

Once at CCF HQ, Jenny the LGD will become a breeding dog and give life to many species-saving pups in the years ahead. Read out interview with Frank to learn how he feels about the partnership…

Tell us about Unicorn ingredients and why you have chosen to support CCF UK.

The staff were keen to support a charity at Christmas 2021 and proposed a charity that would have been important to Jenny. CCF fitted the bill perfectly, following her love of cheetahs and belief in conservation in Africa.

Please share more about the incredible life of Jenny Horan and her passion for wildlife, and cheetahs.

Our daughter Jenny, passed away on 29/6/2017, Jenny bravely faced up to many health issues in her short life and did not allow them to restrict how she lived. She loved and cared for our fragile natural world and wanted to make a difference. Her trip to Africa was to help with conservation, her goal. A friend wrote in a card “I feel your daughter has made a difference in her short life and will continue to do so.”

How do you think Jenny would feel to know her legacy lives on in a project where dogs are saving cats?

Her two favourite animals. How could she disapprove!

What impact do you hope your funding will have?

Simply it helps to allow the cheetah population in Namibia prosper and expand within an environment of increasing human-wildlife conflict

In April 2022, Jenny the LGD travelled c.5,000 miles from Germany to Namibia to take up her new role as a breeding dog. See below for some incredible pictures of her journey and a first look at her finding her feet at our model farm.

If your company is interested in supporting CCF UK’s work, please click here.

If you’re interested in supporting our livestock guarding dog programme, click here.

Support Cheetah Conservation Fund United Kingdom