“A pet is like an island of calm to which you can escape at the end of a long day. After work, the stress dissolves when you walk your dog or play with your cat. Having an animal to look after eases the pressures of daily life,” said Ahmed Al-Aggan, founder and organiser of the Cairo Aleef Pet Festival.
Aleef is an annual festival where animal lovers and their pets, whatever their kind, can gather to spend the day in a spacious and green setting where they can see a wide range of animals, take photographs with them, enjoy the atmosphere, and exchange experiences, Al-Aggan added.
The ninth edition took place at the Children’s Centre for Civilisation and Creativity in Heliopolis recently.
“The Aleef Festival offers something new every year. This year, it featured a diverse group of animals, along with shows of homing pigeons,” said Nadine Hamdi, the festival’s director.
At the gate, a veterinary team examines the animals arriving to ensure that they are disease-free, properly vaccinated, and able to interact safely with visitors. “This is the ninth year we have partnered with Aleef to ensure that every pet that comes to the festival is vaccinated and free of contagious diseases,” said Aya Mahmoud, a vet.
She added that some participants had brought along domesticated exotic animals, including non-venomous snakes, iguanas, and spiders. This year, “we examined an owl, a crow, a parrot, and a tortoise, among other animals,” she said.
“The festival is a social event, creating connections between companies and pet owners, including firms specialising in sand litter, dry food, medical testing, and grooming services for animal hair and nails,” Mahmoud explained.
Mocca, a two-year-old Chihuahua, was visiting the festival again this year in the company of its family. “Mocca enjoys such gatherings. We do, too,” they said.
Mustafa Ammar, a pet enthusiast, arrived at the festival with his two tortoises, named Saad and Saadiya, placed a glass box. Ammar is a content creator specialising in ornamental fish and tortoises. At the festival, while Ammar was making videos to post online, he was also receiving requests from visitors who wanted to take pictures with his tortoises.
He insisted that anyone handling them must wear gloves, fearing that the tortoises might bite them.
He offered visitors advice on keeping tortoises, recommending desert tortoises for household care because they require only a simple enclosure with a heating lamp producing some ultraviolet light used to compensate for the lack of sunlight.
The lamp provides warmth, enabling the tortoise to live in good health, and it needs to be fed only once a day. The desert tortoise is thus very different from aquatic varieties, which need a water tank, an island to relax on, frequent water changes, dedicated care, and more time from owners.
Ammar added that tortoises have their own ways of expressing how they feel, most notably by reducing their movements when they are tired or are recovering from eating too much.
Ali Ramadan had taken his monkey Badari, a female, to the festival. Holding her as she sat dressed in pink, he said that “Badari was attacked in her infancy by a wild cat. She was injured in her hand and on her side. She has become a part of my family ever since.”
“Badari had become fearful of people and wary of strangers because of what she had endured,” he added.
Ramadan talked about how bonding between a pet and its owner develops, saying that a person must truly love the animal and treat it as if it were their own child. This is what he had done with Badari, he said, helping her move past the depression she was experiencing until she had become entirely attached to him.
Ramadan works in caring for, raising, and selling animals, but he said that Badari was an exception. “I wouldn’t sell her even for LE10 million. She is my family, and I am her world,” he commented.
He explained that monkeys are naturally social animals that live in groups, so they consider the household they live in to be an essential part of their family. Their lifespan ranges from 25 to 40 years, but in the wild they often live only half as long as that due to poor living conditions or attacks from other animals.
“At mating time, we shouldn’t abandon our pets,” Ammar said. “Instead, we should provide a suitable space for them at home so they can live normally.”
Also at the festival was Adham Al-Guindi, a professional reptile keeper, who had brought along a hedgehog. He said that hedgehogs are delightful creatures that can be kept as pets but only under the right conditions.
“The first requirement is providing adequate space as well as an appropriate diet. Hedgehogs feed on insects, meat, and chicken, and a portion of their food can be dry, provided it does not exceed 25 per cent of their intake. Their meals should be varied, but they do not need sunlight exposure, as they are nocturnal creatures,” Al-Guindi explained.
When one visitor asked whether hedgehogs prick anyone who holds them, Al-Guindi replied that they only do so when pressure is applied to them.
Nearby stood Yasser Al-Khawanki with a golden eagle perched on his arm, which he described as one of the fiercest eagle species. Reassuring festival visitors that it would not harm them, he explained that it had become domesticated and they could safely take photographs with it.
He said his eagle was two years old and that he raises it at home. It does not require a large space or much movement, only a comfortable perch, food, and water, he said. He takes the eagle out daily for exercise, and because it is currently moulting he lets it fly a short distance before returning to him.
In one of the quiet corners of the festival there were several stands displaying pet fashions. Sohaila Al-Naggar, a vendor, said she was exhibiting the latest trends. She sells locally made pieces for LE200 and imported items for LE400, while accessories vary in price from LE50 to LE350.
Al-Naggar noted that one of the biggest challenges in selling pet clothing is sizing. “Some pets are very large, and it can be difficult to find suitable sizes for them, while others are very small, and the clothes end up being too loose,” she said.
There was also a diagnostic laboratory at the festival, offering free preliminary medical tests for pets to raise awareness about their importance.
Nora Said, one of the laboratory’s veterinarians, said that diagnostic tests are essential for detecting diseases in pets and preventing others. Before such facilities existed, pet owners had to rely on human medical laboratories, she said.
She said that medical samples are sent to her laboratory through veterinarians in general practice, who collect them and forward them to the lab. This then issues a report after completing tests.
Another vet at the lab, Ougina Samir, said that they sometimes discover illnesses in pets that are not experiencing any symptoms. “This is why regular diagnostics are important, especially since the prices are not high,” she said. “A complete blood count for a pet only costs LE120.”
Vet Adnan Said said that such tests were not available a few years ago, and vets had had to rely on human labs when they needed to run tests on pets and many diseases could not be diagnosed without proper testing.
He added that animals share many illnesses with humans, including diabetes and hypertension, and they may also develop liver or kidney problems. These are the kinds of conditions that can only be conclusively diagnosed through appropriate testing, he said.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 4 December, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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