A Dumfries woman has set off for Romania to help traumatised dogs abandoned in Ukraine after the invasion by Russian troops.
Tina Duncan, 45, will volunteer at a dog shelter with a charity that is “bursting at the seams” with animals left behind by owners who were forced to flee their homes.
Tina, who runs Doonhamer Dogs in the town, will support the charity in attempting to rescue, rehabilitate and rehome as many animals as possible.
She said: “I’m absolutely heartbroken at the situation in Ukraine and I just couldn’t sit back and do nothing while hundreds or thousands of dogs have been left traumatised.
“So many of them have been abandoned and will probably never be reunited with their owners.
“Once I’m in Romania and just 20 minutes from the Ukrainian border, I’ll be helping to feed the dogs, assess them and get supplements into them.
“The lady who runs the shelter I’m going to has been going into Ukraine nearly every other day on her own in the middle of the night to just get the most urgent cases out.
“She’s supported by a British rescue, Lucky’s Legacy Rescue. They take animals off her, bring them over to the UK and rehome them but at the moment she is bursting at the seams.”
Animal charity Paw Help Rescue and Adopt UK are focusing their efforts on getting dogs re-homed in the UK. Head of the charity, Elina Olifaruk, said owners do not want to leave their dogs and are “heartbroken” by the parting.
She said: “Families are scared they won’t be let through borders with them. They cry and they are heartbroken but they leave them and ask us to help.”
But Tina said the process to get foreign dogs into the UK is “difficult”.
Tina wants donations to buy animal food in Romania. You can help via PayPal Martina.duncan@hotmail.com
