Luis Kesten, the son of a veterinarian, traveled through Asia and saw the terrible conditions in which dogs had to live there. He realized it was a worldwide problem and contacted his friend Fabio Lehert. Fabio has always had a wonderful relationship with animals, especially dogs.
And before they knew it, they were sitting together in a pizzeria in Bonn, intensely searching for solutions. They couldn't sit idly by, so they booked two plane tickets and flew to Romania to see the problem for themselves. In 2019 they founded Hunderunde, "dog round" in English.
As Fabio said: "When many people come together and do small things, something big is created."
Before founding Hunderunde, its owners, Fabio Lehnert and Luis, asked themselves, "What if every product I bought for my own dog I shared with someone else who wasn't doing so well?"
They set out to make helping street dogs simple and beautiful at the same time. All „Hunderunde“- products contribute to this cause.
Whether it's beautiful handmade bracelets, the self-published book, the engraved dog food bowls or the sweatshirts and T-shirts: they not only help the dogs, but are also sustainably produced and packaged, thus contributing to conscious consumption.
Fabio says: “People and the world need us to take sustainable and social consumption to a new level. In doing so, we actively create the opportunity to help shape and tackle the problem of street dogs step by step at its roots. We want everyone to be aware that no one is too small to make a difference. We want to create a world for others instead of against others. We need new values in our economic system and that is exactly what we want to show - the common good before profit!“
Fabio explains, "As a social enterprise, you have to work on different things at the same time. You build a business based on three pillars: economic, ecological and social. You have it more difficult than other companies that only focus on the purely economic.“
For the two founders of Hunderunde, it was important from the start to break new ground in the field of animal welfare. Instead of founding an NGO, they decided to create a company that would also support sustainable consumption by offering fairly produced and environmentally friendly products. Each donation goes to Mirela, an animal welfare activist who cares for some 200 stray dogs in Romania.
When the author first met Hunderunde, they had just written and self-published their book and were selling bracelets, one of which was designed together with the German organization PETA Deutschland e. V. which donates 6 euros to PETA's spay/neuter campaign in Romania.
This was only nine months ago. Since then, they have continued to expand their product range with dog bowls, sweatshirts and T-shirts.
Hunderunde is set to invest a lot of time in new and innovative products and further strengthen the Hunderunde brand, to widen the circle of the global society which is willing to achieve certain Sustainable Development Goals in due time.
More information: https://hunderunde.shop