Dog shelter Live Paw in Tenerife

It started with my dog running away from me, and never came back. The first week, realizing that my dog will never be at my side again, was awful.

After a month or two, I started feeling lonely, but that loneliness was slowly transforming into a big dark hole of depression that would be so hard to regress. I realized that I couldn’t live like that any longer, so I decided to do something helpful. First, I wanted to adopt a puppy, but I knew that it would not help anyone but me. After thinking about it, I decided to go to a dog shelter. So the next day I was standing near a gate, with crusty little letters, that said:

‘DOG SHELTER’.

Inbounding the dog shelter, I saw the desperate faces of those dogs that were not lucky enough to have a family. I felt sorrow and dizzy, and I was about to run out and never come here again, but something was pushing me forward.

As I reached one crusty old cage, a kind woman approached me to ask what I was doing here, so I explained all of my story. After telling her this, she invited me to a cage that was filled with puppies. Entering, I felt something cold smash into my leg. It was a nose of a chocolate brown-eyed tinny Labrador that was not older than 3 months.

I spent hours sitting in that metal cage, playing with puppies, cleaning their toys and much more. I felt such happiness and relaxation, so when it was time to leave, I felt some discomfort leaving the brown-eyed pups in that cold silver jail, but I knew this was not my last time visiting them.

Coming back the second time, for some reason, it seemed like I knew this place for a really long time. The sun was shining right in my eyes as if it did not want me to see anything except the bright beams.

The same woman from last time approached me and handed me a dog. I was confused. But my confusion did not last long, since she right away explained that I could walk the dog if I was in the mood to. After a couple of minutes of listening to an uneventful lecture, I was free to go to a small but engrossing adventure.

The dog that I was holding was grey, chubby and old but his eyes were full of that energy that I didn’t see after my dog left me. I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t. The edges of my lips were going up. The dog filled the missing gap in me.

At home that day, for the first time in several weeks, I felt that I belonged in this world and that I was not just someone from somewhere. I felt tired. That day became the turn of my life. The day that I will never forget.

Every Saturday morning, I stood near the gate that gave me hope, happiness and opportunities. My work was hard, sometimes even unbearable, but the 2 years I spent there, were clearly not wasted.

Sometimes, I go back to the thought of those little brown-eyed puppies and wonder: Do they have someone that they can love, or did they stay in that cold cage?

Volunteer experience at a dog shelter – Written by Evgeniya Morozova

Contact

Feel free to comment or contact the author of this post to learn more about her dog shelter experience in Tenerife.

Go to our DOG shelters section or visit the general Animal Sanctuaries section