Hello my friends, I have been having a great time with a new friend called Volkan who came to visit me and all of my dog friends from a place called Holland. I have heard of Holland before because lots of my dog friends get told they are going to something called new homes in the place called Holland. Volkan tells me Holland is great and he has lived there all of his life. I don’t think that I will go to Holland  because I am very old and I have lived here happily in the shelter for a long time.

Volkan told me a nice but sad story. He once had a Turkish dog called Dunya who he took to Holland from the streets of Turkey and Dunya lived with him for all of his life and made Volkan very happy. Regrettably one day poor Dunya suddenly passed away which made Volkan very sad. Volkan missed Dunya very much and one night he had a dream in which Dunya was asking for his help so when Volkan awoke he decided he was going to find a way of helping dogs like Dunya in Turkey.

Volkan found out about our shelter on something called the internet and sent us something called an email asking if he could come to help my friends and I. Everyone said ‘yes of course’ so he flew in a noisy thing called a plane a great distance and here he is with us at the shelter.

Volkan spends his days with us dogs here in the shelter cleaning and tidying and taking us for walks. One day he helped to catch a poor Mummy dog who was lost with her two puppies. He also spent one evening helping Sina and Grace taking dogs to the airport. Volkan is a great friend to us and after he has to go back to Holland to do something called work he has promised to come back to help us again in the Spring.

What a nice man!

Akkus

This my friends, is a story that is very familiar to us all, week in and week out, at the shelter. It is a story of how bad my human friends can be but also the goodness that comes from many of them and helps all of us dogs to continue to have faith in them as our friends.

This is one of our new dogs called Dostum which means ‘your friend’ in Turkish. He was dumped as if he were a piece of rubbish in a most terrible condition. He was covered in what are called ticks and fleas which we are told can kill us dogs in a very horrible way.

Dostum was probably only fed on something called stale bread if he was lucky. My friends and I don’t know what stale bread is but apparently bad humans give it to their dogs all of the time. Can you believe that?

Anyway Sina took Dostum to our very kind friend Aynur the vet, who fixes us when we have pains in our tummies and stops us getting things called things called coughs and diseases. Aynur was very shocked at how bad Dostum was so she gave him what is called a ‘big shave’ and got rid of all the nasty ticks and fleas. She also fixed some bad wounds that he had on his body. He looks a bit different now but at least he is eating. Aynur says he has something called anaemia and has to be on something called a drip until he is better.

Dostum is now doing  much better and a very kind human who came and saw how badly treated he had been has very kindly offered him a nice new home with some other dogs who have also had a bad time.

Now for an everyday story in our lives at the shelter that started so badly, isn’t that a nice ending?

Akkus