Finding purpose
helping dogs in Greece
2019 - 2023
There are few things that feel better than 25 dogs wagging their tails because they are happy to see you.
After rescuing a dog from Slovakia in 2016 with my then-partner, I developed a strong desire to understand animal welfare abroad in person
In 2019, we traveled to Greece for the first time to get involved in animal welfare. We had contact with Iris and Walter who run a sanctuary in Nea Kios. They make sure that the dogs are fed and medically cared for.
In 2022 we could finally go to Greece again to help. This time we already knew the tasks and therefore could help much more. We worked on the property, took animals to the vet, visited a nearby shelter and cleaned the kennels and of course spent a lot of time with the dogs at the sanctuary.
In December 2022 I flew quite spontaneously to Thessaloniki to support the organization savethedogsinkallikratia. The work of the association focuses on feeding, medically treating and neutering street dogs and cats. It was an exciting time for me as we caught countless dogs and cats to get them medical treatment and distributed hundreds of kilos of food to the animals.
The anticipation of the dogs when they saw our car fills me with joy to this day.
Rozalie, the founder of the association has known many of the dogs for years and was able to tell me many stories about them. How she found them, how the hierarchy in the pack is and how the dogs all have their own character.
Three days after I saw the Instagram story I was on the plane to Thessaloniki.
The pictures above may be beautiful but unfortunately do not represent the reality of the animals.
The following videos show the precarious conditions in the so-called shelters. We have been there several times to document the bad conditions but also to clean and to take the dogs out of these tense situations for a moment. We were able to take pictures and videos of many of the dogs and thereby increase their chances of adoption.
If animals are particularly bad or severely malnourished, we have also taken them out and individually cared for and brought them to safety at the sanctuary. There they can eat in safety and sleep in peace. They become part of the pack and learn to live together with people.
If you want to know more about the work and my experiences in animal welfare, I would love to tell you more about it.
Most of the organizations are more than happy about financial support because they rely on donations. So are the two organizations I visited. That would be Gnadenhof-Timenio e.V. and savethedogsinkallikratia.