Tiara, a story of redemption from Ukraine

Tiara at Footprints of Joy

Tiara has come a long way to where she is now. Not only because we brought her to safety from a shelter in Ukraine that had been bombed during the first months of the conflict. But also because when she arrived she was very shy and scared and refused all contact with people, which made her incompatible with adoption. Now, after two years of working with her, the progress she has made is evident and we are beginning to glimpse the possibility, one day, of a family life.

The night Tiara arrived at Footprints of Joy.

It was a night in March when Tiara arrived at Footprints of Joy, our shelter in Cernavoda, Romania. Along with her were 29 other dogs, all from a shelter near Odessa that only a few days earlier had been the victim of a major bombing that had damaged part of it.

Read also: How our intervention has changed two years after the outbreak of war in Ukraine

We can only imagine what these 30 dogs went through in those moments, and for each of them, the first period in our center was very hard. As soon as they settled in, we began a long rehabilitation process, and it took weeks before they were convinced they were safe and began to open up to us. Firstly, they began to accept a cookie, then a toy, then finally a caress.

We don’t know much about her past or what she went through before she arrived at the shelter in Ukraine from which we brought her to safety

The rehabilitation journey has been different for each dog

Today, most of them have been adopted and have discovered (or perhaps even rediscovered) the security and stability of a family life. But for some, traumas suffered during the war, perhaps even associated with some bad past experiences, slowed their path.

Tiara was one of them.

Read also: Ukraine. How the rescued animals are faring after the destruction of the Kherson Dam

We don’t know much about her past or what she went through before she arrived at the shelter in Ukraine from which we brought her to safety. When she came to us, we immediately realized that she had experienced something very serious: she would not let us approach her in any way, she hid as soon as she saw us, and her fear of humans was evident.

This attitude made her incompatible with a family adoption, so she was placed in the Long Distance Adoptions program.

We have been doing this work for a long time, but the excitement of seeing them overcome their fears remains the same

The day she accepted a cookie from our hands

Thanks to all her adopters, we were able to continue working with her and give her the support she needed. So, day by day she started hiding less often, until she decided to stay in the enclosure with us, though always keeping at least five meters of safe distance. Over time, those meters became four, then three, then two, until the day she accepted a cookie from our hands.

We have been doing this work for a long time, but the excitement of seeing them overcome their fears remains the same. In their eyes we see all the desire they have to trust, but also the fear they feel, perhaps given by the awareness of a past we cannot know.

Today Tiara is much more at ease with us, accepts a few caresses and even occasionally takes a short nap in our presence. The work ahead is still long and she will need a lot of help, but we see that something in her has changed. And we hope that this will take her further and further.