Thursday 12th May 2022
It has to stop with people who dump their dogs all the time. That is the opinion of Kelly from Rotterdam. To make her point, she locked herself up in a dog kennel in a Spanish shelter for 24 hours. This afternoon she was allowed out. "I have felt the desperation of the dogs."
Kelly has worked at ACE-Charity, a shelter for dogs in the Andalusian town of Cala de Mijas, for almost six years. She normally pulls the door shut behind her at 5pm, but yesterday was different. She locked herself in one of the cages, between the dogs.
Boredom
What struck her immediately was the silence when her colleagues had gone home. "As long as there are people walking by you can still distract you, but after that you are really left to your own devices and the other dogs. I had no phone, no book, nothing to do", she told EditieNL.
The 27-year-old woman had to make do with a pen of about three by one and a half metres, consisting of an indoor and outdoor area. "I installed myself in the inner part with a mat and sleeping bag. Lying down did not fit, so I lay there folded up, together with a large dog. He came to sleep on my neck. He was happy with the human contact.
Other than that, she only had a water bottle with her. "Today I only got food at noon, just like the dogs. I really wanted to live like them. I could do my needs in a bucket or in the drain in the cage. Stopping was not an option, of course."
Loneliness
Kelly felt lonely in the cage. "Of course a dog's way of thinking is different to a human's, but I'm sure they experience restlessness and loneliness in the same way. When the last staff members have left, you notice in the shelter that despair strikes. With every little sound, hundreds of dogs start barking at the same time, hoping that someone is there. I felt them thinking: another day has passed, and again no one has come for me.
This afternoon she was released. "I'm still a bit speechless," she says shortly after. "I feel empty. It only now dawns on me what I have actually done."
Goal
Online, people can support her action by donating money. In addition, she hopes to make people think. "Millions of dogs around the world live like I have. But not for 24 hours; sometimes for years. Waiting for that one boss. Some people dump their dog after it has done one pee in the house. They take it to a shelter and never look back.
By sharing her own experiences, she hopes people will understand what it is like for a dog to be locked up. "I would consider a week to be quite intense. You go crazy mentally. You can see that in the dogs. Some of them are circling around in their cage all the time. At a certain moment it becomes very heavy. I really hope that people will think again before they bring their dogs to the gate.
You can read the original post here.
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