Hi everyone. Buckle up, because this is not a cute volunteer story. This is a direct flight into reality.

I went back to a dog shelter as a volunteer. For a couple of days.

And it was fucked up. Keeping that exact level of shock, no softening.

I arrived early in the morning, and right in front of me the shelter owners brought in 70 more dogs rescued from another, irresponsible shelter. Seventy. And in total, there are already around 300 dogs there.

While another girl and I were washing and cleaning dirty, tеrrified dogs, chaos broke out across the shelter. That other shelter called the police. Police cars arrived. Vetеrinary inspectors arrived. Volunteers hadn’t slept for over 24 hours. Everyone was exhausted, stressed, running around, trying to solve problems and prove the obvious.

Meanwhile, they kept bringing us old, extremely dirty, frightened dogs. My heart was breaking into pieces. I cried. I felt anger. I hated people for allowing things like this to exist. I was emotionally and physically drained to nothing.

I hadn’t felt that empty in a long time. We worked from morning till evening, and one thought kept spinning in my head. How do these people have the heart, patience, and strength to do this every single day.

Every morning they wake up and feed the dogs. To feed about 70 dogs just once, it takes around 100 kg of food per day (about 220 pounds). And there are far more dogs than that.

Medicine. Food. Electricity. Water. Washing machines running nonstop, endlessly washing blankets and towels. Hay to keep the kennels warm. Toys. Clothes. And countless other expenses you never think about until you see it from the inside.

This work is unbelievably hard. And I honestly don’t know how much you have to love animals to not lose your mind in all of this.
It was so emotionally heavy that words don’t really cover it. When I got home, I just sat in the bathroom and cried. From exhaustion. From injustice. From human сruеlty.

Now I understand even more how important it is to help shelters. Verified ones. Because unfortunately, people are still people, and some manage to profit even from situations like this. During those days, I heard so many horrible stories that sometimes it’s hard to believe this is real life.

Sometimes I feel ashamed just for being human. Ashamed of what we’re capable of. It hurts to see people throwing trash on the streets, dеstroying the planet, hurting animals. Maybe I’m naive. Maybe I see the world through rose-colored glasses. I don’t know.

What I do know is this.

What to do with all this раin and awareness is a question without a clear answer.

But it feels like the only option is not to look away and keep doing something.

Even when it hurts like hell.