Another volunteer at Lucky Hunt this summer - Janina Radtke, a 28 years old nurse from Germany, who spent two intense weeks with our animals at the farm and in the shelter.
I had been thinking for a long time about doing volunteer work that looked after animals in need. I wanted to make my contribution to this. I came across Svetlana's Lucky Hunt project on the internet and through correspondence with Bettina, who has a mediating role there, I felt that our ideals were the same, which is why I wanted to be a part of the project.
I myself have a cat whose paw is paralyzed, which I adopted from an animal shelter. I also have a 7-year-old dog whose original owner no longer had the time for Leyla.
During my 2-week assignment, I worked one week on the farm and one week in the clinic/animal shelter.
When I arrived at Lucky Hunt farm I was given a very warm welcome and immediately accepted into the community. The employees on the farm are a well-coordinated team.
I was surprised at first that most of the dogs were running around freely. And how big the farm area actually is. Not only dogs live here, but also cats, donkeys, ponies, pigeons, chinchillas, geese and rabbits.
All the animals on the farm live their "forever life" there, in very good conditions and are generally not available for adoption.
On the farm, I made it my mission to give all the animals the coat care they needed, as they naturally suffered from the heat in the summer, and there were bathing sessions in addition to the cuddling sessions.
There are also disabled dogs on the farm. I particularly noticed Mary, whose hind legs are paralyzed, but she is still very cheerful and full of energy, as if I put her in a wheelchair for a few hours every day so she could let off some steam.
Of course, I also helped out on the farm, which included cleaning the enclosures of feces, feeding the animals, giving them tick protection and much more.
The shelter is about 30 minutes by car from Varna and it is a huge fenced-in area where more than 300 dogs live on the inner grounds.
When you enter as a German volunteer, you are initially perplexed by how many dogs live there and that the different groups also run around freely in their enclosures. Depending on the enclosure, there are group sizes of 30 to 70 dogs.
The staff gave me a very warm welcome and I got to grips with things straight away because every helping hand is needed in the clinic.
The daily routine includes cleaning the enclosures of excrement, cleaning the water troughs, feeding, medical care by changing bandages, cleaning wounds, check-ups, skin care, and tick protection.
And then 9 hours have already passed, there are simply so many animals that the regular staff do not have the time to brush them or bathe them if they have skin problems because they have to provide “emergency care”.
My personal challenge was to deal with the suffering of the animals: fear, injuries, pain, knowing that they don't have a nice home like our animals in Germany and only a fraction of them will ever have a home.
There is no magic formula for mastering this. Except: Keep going!
The dogs give you so much love every single day. They make all this pain bearable, even though they feel it themselves. If each of us helps just a little, we could ease the animals' pain. So join in as volunteers!
Although there's actually a stop on admissions at Lucky Hunt, unfortunately that doesn't interest the heartless people around them who deliberately abandon their animals in front of the clinic, some of them seriously injured.
One of these dogs is Ronja, she was simply abandoned in front of the clinic with her collar still on. Ronja was emaciated, frightened and had apparently never been outside before. We found her in shock and hit by a car, with bones you could see down to, she was so mangled and shocked after the car accident, Her body was covered in scars by attack of aggressive dogs and she must have been nursing her puppies just a few days ago as we noticed at her examination.
Ronja's story, which I was part of, moved me so much, it was just incredible to be there and see how Ronja developed, how she became happier and happier, how she gained weight and began to make friends with the puppies. That's why I decided to get Ronja as soon as her paw got a little better. She will live with me from August 30th.
In Germany, the conditions are completely different both financially and medically.
There is a lot more staff for so many animals. In the Lucky Hunt City six people work every day and are responsible for over 300 dogs.
We always forget how good our animals have it here in Germany, even in an animal shelter. What is really better in Lucky Hunt is that the dogs are not locked in cages but live freely in packs.
A lot has changed for me. A new family member, Ronja, is coming soon, which I am already looking forward to. I have made friends at Lucky Hunt that will continue.
Even though I am no longer there this year, I want to be a part of it and help. By collecting donations, advertising to come as a volunteers and raising awareness in my environment about further adoptionsin order to create the much-needed space in the clinic for new animals in need.
I myself have decided to take part in the Lucky Hunt project once a year because I am convinced of the work that is done there.