Homeless People and Dogs

While in Bosnia and rescuing stray dogs, the months turned into more than a year. The organization we helped had tiny doghouses where they chained the dogs 24/7. When the President would go to Germany she took approximately fifteen dogs with her to be left with another organization in Germany (she did this maybe twice a year).

Some dogs didn’t make it out of her “camp” especially the older ones had to stay. Also the bigger dogs that seemed to have too much energy. But what would you expect from a dog that was chained up all the time on a one meter chain?

Sometimes I helped with feeding them. It was very stressful for the dogs and for me. I still don’t know how the other workers felt, they never complained or had any negative comments. Being Bosnian and having nothing after the war, maybe they were afraid that the money would stop coming in if they complained?

One day I noticed that some off the dogs had changed. Their spirit wasn't "glowing" anymore.
I realized it was a high price they had to pay, being caught-- kept on a short chain-- after being "free" roaming around for several months and for some, even years.


Did we do the right thing to kill their spirit by holding them and keeping their body alive?


Years later an Italian friend asked me about Sweden. One off her questions was about our welfare. I told her that we had homeless people and soup kitchens and some places the homeless could live. Suddenly I remembered what one volunteer had told me.
“There are some people that don’t want an apartment, they just come for the food.”
I didn’t understand why --- why wouldn’t anyone want an apartment?
“They love their freedom, and they have learned how to survive on the street for a long time. They feel like they would die with what they think is being "locked in" and living by someone else’s law that they don’t agree with.”

This made me think off the dogs in Bosnia chained up, and also the free older dogs here in Italy that love their area. The people around them are so used by feeding them every day. They also want their freedom and not anyone’s law, a chained up law.


Liberta e Amore!