Imagination gin helps animal charity Huha with pugs' care costs

Imagination distiller Rachel Mazur with a pug which is in Huha care.

A Kāpiti based company's collaboration gin has raised a lot of money to assist Helping You Help Animal's (Huha) with the veterinary costs, and more, for a lot of pugs in their care.

Imagination gin, based in the Reikorangi hills, generated an impressive $15,000 for the charity from their The Happy Pug gin.

Co-owner Chris Charteris said the idea to help the charity came from one of the company's distillers, Rachel Mazur, who has a passion for animals.

"She's always wanted to work for Huha, and has done a few charity gins in the past, and then asked if she could do one for Huha."

Rachel said, "I really admire all of the hard work Huha do and I strongly believe that we must be a voice for those that can't speak for themselves."

Chris said a few concept gins were developed late last year at the time when Huha had taken in 25 pugs.

"We decided to make it a bit more specific because they are incurring quite big vet bills and stuff with the pugs.

"So we came up with The Happy Pug gin where $25 of every bottle sold goes to Huha.

Imagination's The Happy Pug gin.

"We thought we would do one batch, and promote it in collaboration with Huha, and see if we could get through 400 bottles.

"It was launched just before New Year's, which was a funny time, but it got a good reception.

"And when we came back from leave, we did a bit of social media stuff on it, and it just flew out the door.

"By the middle of January we had oversubscribed our first batch by about 200 bottles so we did another batch to complete the orders.

"Our target was originally $10,000 but now we're giving Huha $15,000."

The gin is Japanese-inspired with a twist of Kiwi.

It uses a traditional Japanese citrus fruit called yuzu as well as a New Zealand native plant called kawakawa.

"It was an amazing gin so that was another cool part of it.

"The girls [Rachel Mazur and Lucy Campbell] did an amazing job of making it."

Huha founder Carolyn Press-McKenzie said, "We're really grateful and extremely happy to receive the support from Imagination."

The case of the pugs had been "emotionally and financially quite overwhelming".

Carolyn said it all started when Huha received a phone call from a person who had 25 puppy mill dogs and wanted to sign them over to the charity.

"It was quite obvious they had been uplifted from somewhere and it was going to be a complicated scenario but our first thought was that we would secure them, make sure they were safe, and then unpick and find out what has gone on."

The dogs, aged from about 10 years to 5 weeks, which the charity found out were stolen, were in "quite a state of disrepair" and "a lot of them were seriously ill, some chronically, and one acutely".

They were checked over by a vet and various treatment given in recent months.

One of the pug's in Huha care.

Carolyn said the SPCA had been involved but had their hands tied because the dogs were stolen.

She said police had requested the dogs were returned to the owner, because they were stolen, but the charity was "respectfully refusing".

"In the meantime we've had five of the pugs go through significant surgeries at Massey University."

Overall the charity had spent "probably $30,000 on their health".

"The dogs are happy, and they're safe, but we're in limbo.

"We would love to de-sex them and get them into homes, and we're kind of wondering at this point if they might be abandoned, but we are just consulting with lawyers to work out the best way forward."

Rachel said, "I just want to acknowledge all of the hard work and dedication Huha put into helping animals in need.

"Our team at Imagination is grateful to be in a position to help out and give back to our community."