The grumpy hen Baba Zina, the dogs Romka and Hraf, Mike and Gina, the pig Dusia, and the goat Marta live in shelters or with families across Ukraine. Most likely, these, and thousands of others, animals would not have survived if they hadn’t been taken in, evacuated, or treated in time by the people honored by UAnimals at the Animal Protection Award. 

These people experience every layer of society’s attitude toward animals on a daily basis. They know how often indifference is intertwined with compassion in the story of an animal.

We asked them about the moments that left the strongest impressions on them, and here’s what they’ve told us.

“No one expected he would survive” 

Anastasiia Klimniuk, the founder and the head of Animal House Rescue NGO

Kharkiv/Poltava region

This memory is from February 26, 2022. Animal food was hard to come by in Kharkiv. You couldn’t buy natural food, and all pet stores were closed. A warehouse with pet supplies opened in a garage. We were in a queue for dog food with 60 other people. It was a moment I’ll never forget. A man approached us with a cat in a carrier. His house had been destroyed, his wife had evacuated. He decided to go defend the country and had nowhere to leave the cat. He asked the people if anyone could take the cat in. No one responded. My husband and I exchanged glances and almost instantly decided to take the cat. That’s how we started taking in animals.

Later, we found out that the cat belonged to that man’s son. He and his wife had just had a baby, who was just two weeks old when the war began. So they decided to leave the cat with the grandparents for a month. When the man came to that line, the young parents were under russian occupation. Later, I received a message from them asking, “Do you still have our cat by any chance?” They sent me a photo of him as a kitten. So when we took him in, he was still very young. In 2022, the cat returned to his family.

There are examples of very caring attitudes toward animals in our area. Once, people saw a German shepherd lying near their yard. At first, they thought the dog was dead since he didn’t even move his ears. Eventually, they realized the dog was breathing. The people contacted us, and we took the animal to a veterinary clinic. There was very little hope of him surviving. The dog had no sensitivity in his body at all. An MRI showed a dislocation in his cervical spine.

When we picked the dog up at the clinic, he was already eating and going to the toilet on his own. The people who found him agreed to take in the dog with a disability and care for him. They named him Hraf. Now he can crawl, lie in a sphinx pose, and sit up for about 40 seconds, and he doesn’t need anyone’s help to eat. They built a wheelchair-like device so he is able to move around.

She fled on foot with a child and a puppy from shelling 

Olena Rusina, the head of Pegasus shelter

Malozakharyne, Dnipropetrovsk region

Recently, we were asked to go to a village because there was a large injured dog there. He had just appeared on the streets, even wearing a collar, but no one knew where he came from.

Local elderly women noticed him. These weren’t young people, skilled at using the Internet, yet they still tried to post his photo on social media to look for his family. The women even chipped in to buy parasite treatments for the dog.

We got a call after he got into a fight with another dog. We arrived and were met by these women, all with canes. These were civilized people who didn’t abandon the animal. They didn’t say, as often happens, “The dog’s lying around somewhere, go find him yourselves.” They followed our car, led us to the exact spot where the dog was. They cared for us, the volunteers. That was very heartwarming. The dog is still being treated and now lives at Pegasus shleter.

There was also a case when the offensive on Vovchansk began. Some people even fled on foot. A woman contacted us, asking if we could help provide shelter for a puppy. We didn’t want to, as our shelter was overcrowded. But it turned out this young woman was fleeing shelling on foot. She only took her child in a stroller. Just imagine the state she was in at that time! On the road, she saw a small, exhausted puppy. He was in the same circumstances as she was. The woman picked up the puppy and placed him at the bottom of the stroller! 

She made it to Dnipro, but didn’t abandon the puppy in the city. Then she contacted us, saying, “What do I do with a puppy and a child?” I posted the story on social media, and a family immediately responded and adopted the dog.

“Forgive me, Mike”

Serhii Ludenskyi, the founder and the head of Save Animals Ukraine NGO

Dnipro

Not long ago, I was asked to evacuate two Rottweilers from the frontline village of Oleksandropil in the Donetsk region. An elderly man was still living there, with a granddaughter waiting for him in Poland. The only issue was the dogs: two Rottweilers, 7-year-old Mike and 5-year-old Gina, lived in his yard. Traveling with such large dogs would have been difficult for the elderly man. It was because of them that he hadn’t left.

On the day of the evacuation, the elderly man arrived at his yard by bicycle. He had come from a small neighboring village, which was hit less often by artillery. A field behind his house was burning after a strike. All of this was happening under the thunderous sound of artillery.

The most heartbreaking moment was the man’s goodbye to his dogs. He hugged Mike’s head and said, “Forgive me, Mike. I have no choice.”

That video on my TikTok got a million views. I think many Ukrainians could relate to that pain.

We knew that Mike was aggressive. I had to climb onto the roof of the van and pull him up by the leash to get him inside.

The elderly man asked us to leave quickly, to avoid prolonging the goodbyes. So we did.

We brought the dogs to our shelter near Dnipro. It turned out that Mike was only aggressive toward other dogs. Both Rottweilers were soon taken in by lovely families. I’m very happy there are people who don’t abandon animals and others who are willing to take them in.

Two skeletons on chains

Tetiana Nelha, the founder of Zoofamily charity fund and shelter 

Pavlysh, Kirovohrad region

I always see both sides of the coin in how people treat animals, and it shocks me. I look at the soldiers, the rescuers who evacuate animals from combat zones while risking their own lives. They’re amazing. On the other hand, there are people in our area who don’t sterilize their pets, who cruelly dispose of puppies and kittens in trash bags at garbage dumps or in treelines. Some head into shelling to save animals; others kill them.

In our area there were people who would frequently leave their homes, abandoning their animals in chains and not feeding them. By law, we don’t have the right to enter someone else’s yard and take the animals. We had to push to get the police to go in with us and remove the dogs from their chains. These were already two skeletons. There’s currently an investigation against those people, so I can’t say more. I took the animals for treatment and rehabilitation at Zoofamily.

When a vet becomes an animal volunteer

Aliona Hrinnyk, the founder of Give a Paw YU NGO

Pivdennoukrainsk, Mykolaiv region

One day the phone rang, “Hello, I’m a veterinarian. I googled ‘volunteers Pivdennoukrainsk,’ and your number came up right away. I want to be useful, by giving advice at the very least.” It was Oleksandr Sokolov, who had relocated from Enerhodar. We met, and I immediately invited him to join our sterlization projects.

Before that, I had rented a house in the neighboring village of Kostiantynivka for animals to be housed temporarily. Well, calling it a house is generous; it was falling apart. There were walls, piles of trash, and grass up to our waists. My husband, my father, and I started fixing it up. People helped. Someone brought a bucket, someone brought a broom. A few volunteers came to clear weeds. We made sure the house was in order and set up a temporary place for animals to stay in. 

When Oleksandr arrived, with other volunteers, we chipped in to buy thread, anesthesia, and to set up an operating room. We began sterilizing stray cats and dogs there.

Time passed. I changed jobs, and our financial situation improved. We invested money, and in September 2024, we opened a clinic in the city.

There, we treat pets for a fee — to help strays, you need resources. Soldiers and internally displaced persons get discounts; some even get treatment free of charge. If an elderly woman comes with a pet, we treat it at a discount or free of charge. Plus, we do free spaying only of female cats so far. Our city has a shelter. By agreement, we operate on their dogs. Sometimes animals are brought in for treatment and we don’t charge for that. For strays under care of volunteers, we only charge the cost of materials.

We run campaigns for the free sterilization of strays. Our city is small, and there are more animals here than people. So we focus on sterilization. 

That village house now serves as a post-op recovery space and houses animals with disabilities. And Oleksandr Sokolov still works with me at the clinic.

“It wasn’t the shelling that killed them, it was hunger”

Alina Ostapenko, a member of Sumy Animal Home 

Sumy

I hardly remember life before the war. February 24, 2022, was a turning point in my mind. That’s when my real test as an animal rights defender began. It seemed that after the liberation of the Sumy region, life should have gotten easier, but then came the shelling of border areas and mandatory evacuations.

A year ago, in Yunakivka, a border village in the Sumy region, a local woman found eight dead dogs in different yards. It wasn’t the shelling that killed them, it was hunger. Most of the animals remained chained up until they died, unable to find even a scrap of food. All of them had been left there by people.

We had to go there to save the chained-up animals. On our first trip to the border area, we evacuated two dogs, Bruno and Alex, from Yunakivka.

Bruno’s survival was nothing but a miracle. We found him tied up in a yard where two other dogs already lay lifeless. Alex survived by eating raw corn.

After Alex and Bruno, we evacuated around 15 more dogs from Yunakivka.

Bruno is now at the shelter, and we’re still looking for a home for him. Alex found a loving family last year.

After meeting these dogs, we began actively evacuating animals from the border areas. Few people wanted to go to the villages of the Sumy region, so I decided to learn how to drive. That’s how a new chapter of spending weeks in remote shelled corners of the region began. Sadly, we couldn’t save them all.

In three years, we’ve found homes for about a thousand animals. No more abandoned animals is the result I strive for.

Neighbors so unalike

Olha Volkova, the head of Soul of a Tramp shelter 

Lupareve, Mykolaiv region 

This happened in the village of Lymany, before my trip to the Animal Protection Award. There, one woman poisoned about 20 dogs.

An acquaintance came to me and said, “Imagine, Olia, while you’re saving animals, this woman asked me, ‘Are you going to the city? Then buy me some rat poison, I didn’t have enough. I’ll poison the dogs.’” When I heard that, I went to the village. But the dogs were already dead, I couldn’t do anything. I saw the woman who poisoned them. I asked if she didn’t feel sorry for the dogs. She replied, “No. I poisoned them, and I’ll keep poisoning them.”

Olha has passed her testimony to the legal department of UAnimals and hopes to bring that woman to justice.

Roman Oleksandrovych, Baba Zina, Dusia, and the others

Viktoriia Zhydkova, the founder of Virnist animal protection society and of Human Rights Initiative NGO

Dobropillia, Donetsk region

In August 2019, my husband went to take out the trash. There was a bag with puppies in the dumpster. Only one was still alive, it was just two hours old. That’s when our fight for its life began. My husband made a special box for the puppy, basically, an artificial mom. We fed it by the clock, woke up at night. One time, my husband suddenly yelled, “Come here!” I thought something bad had happened. I came over and the puppy had opened the eyes. I’ve never seen my husband so happy. And now that dog is our famous Roman Oleksandrovych. Little Roma.

Another real act of humanity was when a whole chain of kindness worked together to rescue a farm in Udachne. I’m a vegetarian, and it was essential to me to save the farm, not to slaughter the animals. I wanted to create a shelter that would take in farm animals, and I shared the idea on social media.

That’s when a man from Udachne called me. He had a small farm. I must’ve asked him ten times, “Are you going to eat the animals?” He said no, and that their goose was 15 years old, the goats were 17…

Many people were involved in the farm’s evacuation. And now the animals from Udachne live at my shelter. We have Dusia the pig, who gives you her paw. There’s Marta the goat, she always greets you, bleats in her own way, and stretches out her front leg. There’s a chicken we call Baba Zina because she’s always grumpy. The moment you walk into the coop, she clucks as if to say, “You’re walking wrong, standing wrong, doing everything wrong.” Her beak won’t ever close. 

Kolia and the puppies 

Inna Borodulia — founder and the head of Happy Cat CSO

Zaporizhzhia

I work closely with a soldier named Slavik. He has evacuated a large number of animals and finds people to take them out of the combat zone. He pays for sterilization and treatment out of his own pocket. I’m actually about to head out to vaccinate puppies where he’s stationed. I’d love to take them all to the shelter, but that’s just not possible. To me, he’s a human with a capital H.

But I have another hero. Kolia, a tall, easy-going guy who works at a factory. Honestly, at first, I thought he wasn’t the brightest. But things aren’t always what they seem at first glance. The summer before last, Kolia found newborn puppies in a dumpster. Not afraid of the challenge, he took them in and raised them. All by himself! And this while working shifts at a demanding job! Every one of those puppies survived. He found homes for them all and kept one for himself. Ever since, I tell him, “Kolia, you’re my hero.”

***

After receiving their awards, the winners of the Animal Protection Award are quick to step out of the spotlight and return to their animals. At home, they change back into work clothes and roll up their sleeves. For three years of full-scale war, these people have been taking in dogs and cats, farm and wild animals, those evacuated from the front line or nearby areas, and sometimes they evacuate them on their own. That’s hundreds, sometimes thousands, of new animals each year. Animals keep arriving because the war continues. However, we can at least make sure these animal defenders don’t have even more work because of abandoned and mistreated pets left behind in safer regions of Ukraine.

Sopha looks over my shoulder. The apples I gave her have been eaten a long time ago. And now she grabs the edge of the lens with her big soft lips and then runs her tongue along the lens. Well, the lens has been licked by a horse. And yet, even so, everything I point it at here seems alive and bright.

Sopha lives in Pegasus shelter among the meadows of the Dnipropetrovsk region.

In addition to horses, there are other domesticated animals, cats, dogs and wild animals — more than 800 in total. How come a small village in central Ukraine had a whole animal rescue centre? Let’s go and find out.

They came from everywhere: Nulyk and goats from the garage roof

About an hour’s drive from Dnipro, and we turn off the highway to Malozakharyne. Having passed it, we roll along the dirt road away from human dwellings. Finally, we hear barking among the paddocks. We have arrived.

“You come here and you have a different mood. You say hello to everyone. It has its own atmosphere that cannot be expressed in words,” smiles Sava, the head of the shelter. “We have raccoons over there, they are inhospitable, always asleep. Let’s go to the pigs instead.”

Okay, let’s go to the pigs. We pass by the stables, and behind them there is the area where the pigs live: a few domestic ones, many Vietnamese and in the last compartment there is a wild boar.

“This wild boar escaped from the farm and we took him,” says Sava. “Only Vova comes in to clean. And no matter how long I’ve been working here, I’ll never go into the stall with the wild boar! To be honest, I’m afraid of him. Come closer, I’ll introduce you.”

The boar’s name is Soma, and he quickly turns to familiarity when we get to know each other: he demands to be scratched. There are special brushes for this purpose. Sava asks the very Vova to scratch Soma’s hair. The man says: “I’m going to him: ‘Soma, Soma!’ — and he obeys. But just in case, I come in with a shovel to shield myself if he gets in a bad mood.”

Soma’s mood is normal. Nearby, goats are being let out of the barn. Sava points to a few of them: “These are Kherson goats — we took them off the roof of a garage in Kherson.”

When the Russians blew up the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant, many locals from the Dnipropetrovsk region bought boats and went to take the animals, the man says. Then about 200 dogs were brought to Pegasus from the city. Among them was little Chapa. Sava recalls: “We were approaching Antonivskyi Bridge. The Ukrainian Armed Forces warned us not to go there because there was constant shelling. We took the risk. As we were leaving the bridge, we saw a dog running. The shelling starts, and we hear it flying… Can you imagine the adrenaline! We stopped abruptly and tried to catch the dog. She was already shell-shocked, afraid of sharp sounds. I grabbed the dog, and two or three shells fell not far from us.”

The local cats have health problems. All those who could be given away were adopted. There are many more dogs. Pegasus can no longer accept stray animals: there are no enclosures. Now they take only evacuees from the hot spots. “This one here is deaf, from Bakhmut, he’s shell-shocked,” they introduce me to an old dog who lives in front of the quarantine house. “And this is Nulyk — do you know why? He came from the front, from nul (‘nul’ is a zero front line in Ukrainian).“

30 rescued pegasuses 

“Well, let’s go!” a smiling woman approaches me with a bucket of carrots.

This is Olena Rusina, the founder of the shelter. We take the bucket with us to the stables, and Bambi immediately reaches for a carrot. Her nose is slightly crooked, but she hardly seems to care. As a baby, Bambi had a slim chance of survival. With a nose defect like hers, it is almost impossible for a horse to learn to eat on her own. Bambi was put up for sale and bought by Pegasus. Here, she had grated vegetables and fruits for a long time and was taught to eat. And now she calmly bites off an apple from my hands.

The first horses appeared in the shelter in 2013, back in Antonivka. Now, in Malozakharyne, there are 30 of them. 

All of these horses have special needs. None of them can be a “workhorse” — some because of their age, others because of their health. Almost all of them were bought from their owners, who had given them to slaughter.

“We received calls from people saying that cows, sheep, horses needed help… But do you understand how difficult it is to make such a serious decision? They need a place, care and maintenance. Even a healthy horse is expensive to keep, but here there’s a sick one! We took the risk, though, took them and it worked out,” Olena recalls.

Among the horses, there is the shelter’s namesake, Pegasus. He had a leg injury, so it was clear to the owners that the stallion would not be able to carry loads or riders. Now he lives here.

Probably, Liubasha, the mare, has the most problems. She suffers from hypoxia attacks: it is difficult for the animal to breathe, and she has to be connected to an oxygen machine. The mare Adele has cancer. The horse Black, a former athlete, can no longer rest on his hind legs as before. These animals should live in a specialised facility.

The shelter is planning to build a hospital for sick horses. It will have a soft cover and all the conditions for a veterinarian to provide on-site care to the animal. 

Ship of the desert

In the stables, another interested eyes follow me. It’s Yasha.

“He is really like a ship of the desert, the way he looks down on us,” Olena says. Despite his absolutely friendly appearance, a camel is a dangerous animal. “I’m always worried that he won’t bite off someone’s head,” says the owner of the shelter. “We give him watermelons, and he bites them into pieces right away. It’s barely a mouthful for him!”

Yasha came here three years ago. Before that, he lived in a zoo complex near Odesa. There were also predators there: when Yasha got cystitis, they decided to give him to them for food. Pegasus employees took him to the shelter.

“Oh, how we treated him… It was like hunting. We waited for him to lie down to rest, and the nurse had to give him an injection quickly in his ass. And after that, he was hunting for the nurse…”

Only Masha, the donkey, is not afraid of him. Indeed, Yasha virtually raised her. So they decided not to separate them.

A shelter that appeared at the dacha 

Olena had a technical degree, and at the age of 33 she decided that she needed something else. The woman used to treat stray animals and had already settled several dozen dogs at her dacha. That’s why she went to study veterinary medicine: “I wasn’t going to work in a clinic — it was necessary for my dogs,” says Olena. “The girls from the training helped me: after classes, we quickly got into the car and went to the dacha. We treated everyone there and came back. When everyone started using the Internet, it became easier to meet people like them. Someone saves someone else, and then there is nowhere to take them! You can’t throw them away!“

That’s how, in 2006, an animal shelter was set up at the dacha that belonged to Olena’s father. However, it soon became too crowded for them. 

In 2012, all the dogs moved from the dacha to the village of Antonivka. Pigs and goats appeared already there. However, they also had to move from Antonivka: in May 2016, a mudslide hit the shelter and carried the dog kennels and enclosures for a kilometre and a half. “The water in the house was up to our necks. We carried the animals upstream in our arms,” recalls Yana, a shelter worker. People and animals quickly moved to Malozakharyne, to higher ground. They started building Pegasus already there.

Well, the father, the owner of the dacha where it all began, was sceptical at first. Now he takes part in the life of the shelter: “Dad helps in ways you can’t even imagine! He used to grumble and grumble, but now he fosters dogs at his place. And I also have a trick: we don’t actually cry here, but I learned how to do it before my dad. We had puppies with enteritis. I called him, crying, and said, ‘Dad, please take them in…’ And he agreed, and even took them to the clinic for treatment. In fact, my father is proud of me.”

Olena’s son Mykhailo also helps the shelter. It was he who built the first enclosures and made the fences for the paddock and the bathing area for the horses. When I come to the shelter, Mykhailo is just building a hospital for sick animals. 

Working days and nights 

Pegasus is divided into 4 zones: the so-called wild zone, cat zone, dog zone and the farmyard where domestic animals live. This zone is a local feature and even pride: Pegasus is known among animal rights activists as one of the largest shelters with domestic animals. 

“A weekend can be a couple of hours. And you are happy to have these two hours. But you stand there and don’t know what to do with them. Because you’re used to being on all the time,” says Olena. She moved to the village. There is no other way: “Sometimes patients are brought to the shelter at night, and I pull the nurse right out of bed. Or something happens to someone, and it’s already the dead of night! I call the doctor and she says, ‘I’m at home, it’s okay, go ahead!’. And then we take the animal to her… This is my way of life.”

Yes, a nurse works at the shelter, a doctor visits, and a blacksmith comes to the ungulates. Olena’s main task is to plan everything, especially the logistics: who to take and where to go. People from the village work directly with the animals, everyone knows each other.

As I pull out the recorder, they gather in the yard near a pile of firewood. Everyone is focused, and one of the workers is aiming at the pile with a net. It turns out that they are waiting for the cat: he needs to have his procedures done, but the sly one is hiding under the firewood.

“If I’m free, I also work with the animals,” Olena says. “The horse Ruslan, for example, must be driven on ropes for the health of his legs. Sometimes I go to the dogs — they need attention and communication. I don’t do the same thing every day.”

Multiplication problems 

Olena shows me her bank statement: “Wow, how far I’m going negative! I have 36 thousand in credit. This is the clinic, hay, pharmacy… And there are not even petrol costs here!”

The shelter lives on donations, and sometimes charitable foundations help with food for dogs and cats. However, hay is hard to get:

“People are more likely to donate for cats and dogs,“ Olena explains. “And if you write that you have nothing to feed your horses… It’s harder. If we had money, when the mowing started, we would have bought hay in advance — the price was better then. That year, a bale of hay cost 50 hryvnias in the season, and now it costs 75, 80, 100… A bale is food for one horse or cow per day. For a camel — 2 bales. For 3 donkeys — 1 bale. But hay is the hardest thing to raise money for.”

Yana and her savages

“Lena acts with her heart. And I am responsible for rationality,” says Yana.

The woman has been working at the shelter ever since it appeared in Antonivka. She and Olena met on New Year’s Eve in 2012. They have been working together since then. 

“I was 17 years old,” says Yana, “and I worked as a dispatcher for a transportation company. Someone threw away a puppy and it was running around near my work. It was so cute. I realised that the dog would get hit by a car if it stayed there. So I started looking for a place to take it. I found a shelter, and they said: either pay money or come to work. I promised to work for them. However, the work turned out to be completely different from what I had agreed on. At that time, someone poisoned the dogs in that shelter. I worked off by collecting corpses.”

Yana did not study to be a veterinarian, but she mastered the protocols for treating wild animals on her own. The shelter gradually began to accept wild injured animals: foxes caught in traps, birds with broken wings. Then exotic animals from nurseries and private zoos came. Most of them arrived sick. 

“Our raccoons are very fat,” says Yana. “It’s my mistake. Shall I put a treadmill or something? There are ropes… Dusya is so clumsy when she chases me away with her hand. I can tell all raccoons apart, they are completely different to me.” 

A steppe marmot, foxes and two wolves have apartments in the “wild zone”. Common raccoon dogs are their neighbours. Despite their names, these animals and raccoons belong to different families. Both are predators, but these are the raccoon dogs that particularly do not mind biting an unwary visitor. Olena laments: “Sometimes schoolchildren come on excursions, but the children manage to stick their fingers into the enclosure. They stand like this: ‘A raccoon, a cute one…’ And they put their fingers inside!”

Amber eyes stare at me from the last enclosure in the “wild zone”. It’s a wild fox. When someone set fire to the dead wood, it got caught in the fire and was completely burned. This fox is the only one who has at least a small chance to return to nature. The other foxes of Pegasus will not survive there: they are either very injured or have long been accustomed to humans. 

Yana plans to equip their enclosure so that the conditions are as close to natural as possible. Perhaps the foxes will even be able to build their own dens. 

***

The car sways gently on the dirt road again, moving away from Pegasus. Iryska, Yana’s dachshund, climbs onto my lap. And now someone is trying to lick the camera again.

Vuhlyk is a shelter for domestic animals and pets with branches in Kherson, Dnipro and Mykolaiv regions. Its history began in the Lviv region, but a thousand kilometres to the east, the founder of the shelter, Oleksandra Havryliuk-Levytska, found large areas for grazing domestic animals. And also people who were sympathetic and supportive of her work. And a lot of sun.

 Because of the war, Oleksandra and her family had to leave their new home in the Kherson region. They moved by several cars — along with chickens, sick dogs and cats. However, Vuhlyk’s branches in eastern Ukraine are still operating.

Oleksandra Havryliuk-Levytska told UAnimals media how she managed to create a network of centres, resuming the work literally from scratch, how the Kherson shelter lives under occupation, and what lies ahead for Vuhlyk.

About children, animals and sterility 

As a child, I dreamed of a horse and a dog, but my parents did not support the idea of taking care of pets. They cared more about the cleanliness of the house, even to the point of sterility. Now I can understand my parents’ position: the four of us lived in a small apartment in Truskavets, my parents were constantly working, and the pets would have to be taken care of. 

A child cannot take responsibility for caring for animals. Now, I can’t tell my daughter either: “You have a pet — take care of him: clean, cook, walk him.” 

But I believe that any child can benefit from having animals at home. This is confirmed by many studies by the World Health Organisation. Children who grow up with animals have fewer health problems, such as allergies. Their immune system is stronger and their mental health is more stable.

These studies have been published recently — they didn’t exist back in my childhood. Instead, it was believed that everything had to be disinfected for kids, and that any animal brought dirt. I was reminded to wash my hands ten times a day. I had numerous food poisonings because in such sterile conditions the body could not develop immunity to certain pathogens.

However, my child has “eaten” enough dirt. Sometimes she spends half a day hanging out with chickens, hugging and kissing them. She loves chickens.

Physically, my daughter is as healthy as possible. However, she has an autism spectrum disorder, so communication with animals is very useful for her. When the weather is good, we go to shelters, and I let my daughter sit on the horses’ backs. I am against horse riding, but a child weighing 20 kilograms will not harm a physically healthy horse. 

I let my daughter communicate with animals to her heart’s content. These are my dreams that have come true. 

We have about 40 cats — some are blind, some are sick, and some are very old. There is also an old-timer dog, Bobchik. He was already old when we were given him, and more than 10 years have passed since then, so I’m even afraid to think how old he is now. And there is a dog called Babuletka, also very old. She has demodicosis, so we treat and care for her ourselves. 

Most of the rescued cats and dogs live in Vuhlyk, and I only take home those who will not survive in the shelter.

About the first rescued ones — Roger and… Vuhlyk

In my third year at the institute, I was involved in sports. One day, I went to buy a suit for a competition and, on my way, I met a boy in an underpass selling a puppy. It was a pit bull terrier that no one wanted to take because it was born the biggest among his siblings. People were afraid that the dog would grow up to be too aggressive. Of course, I didn’t buy a suit, but gave the money to that guy and took the dog. It was my first dog, Roger.

Because of Roger, I had a lot of conflicts with my parents. They had their plans for my future: they wanted me to go abroad and settle down there. It was hard to do with a dog. So they asked me to give the dog away, to find “other hands” for him. 

Because of that situation, I didn’t talk to my parents for almost a month: when they gave me an ultimatum, I said I wouldn’t betray my pet. We stayed together where we were.

As for the first animal rescue, it was a kitten. I found him more than 15 years ago. Back then, I had just started dating my husband, and one evening we were walking the dogs and heard loud meows. My husband ran to the basement and pulled a small black cat out from under the bricks. We named him Vuhlyk. 

On creating a shelter, conflicts and fire

I have always wanted to save animals, but I’ve also realised what a great responsibility it is. In Truskavets, my husband and I were constantly in conflict with our neighbours because we kept three pit bulls. Although even my parents were joking: “These dogs would rather lick someone senseless rather than bite them.” 

When we started taking in stray animals, we had to move to the village. For this purpose, in 2009, we bought an old, inexpensive house in the village of Brodky and started renovating it.

I thought that on my own rural plot, I would be able to minimise conflicts with people, but it turned out to be not so easy. The villagers had their own ideas about how we should live. And some of the neighbours used to say about us: “When will they burn down?” 

And so, on January 8, 2018, a fire really happened in our house with the rescued animals. At five in the morning, the neighbours from across the street knocked on our door, shouting that our first floor was on fire. We could not rescue our cats from there. But other neighbours helped us to get the horses, pigs and cows out.

For some reason, the rescuers arrived with empty cars. Having no water to extinguish the fire, they first stood and watched it burn. Time was lost. Then they started pumping water from a nearby pond. Although some of the stables on the site were preserved, nothing remained of the house. 

We have no evidence that it was an arson. The police put forward a version of spontaneous combustion due to a short circuit. And I don’t want to think badly of people. 

At that time, I had a six-month-old daughter, and it became an extremely difficult challenge for our family: being left homeless with the baby and all the animals. 

About new shelters, new conflicts, and the value of support

After the fire, a woman from a neighbouring village, Natalia Turuta, helped us a lot. She arranged for other people in Krasiv to sell us the land in instalments. 

At first, there was nothing there: no stables, no water. Just empty land. After the fire, I thought there would be no shelter. I would definitely not be able to revive anything on my own. But Natalia and her husband began to build a fence on that territory, and after a while, we were able to move the animals there. 

The Turutas became administrators of the shelter, continued to care for the animals, and took on organisational tasks. They believed in our project and helped to keep it alive. And when the full-scale invasion began, these caring people went to the front. 

Later, we also started having problems with locals in Krasiv. Although the shelter was located outside the village and could not bother the residents in any way, it somehow did. People complained that the animals were defecating and stinking. By the way, pig farms, where animals are fed for slaughter, are also mostly located close to villages, but for some reason, the stench of their excrements does not bother people.

In our conflicts, it came to a village meeting to evict the shelter from the outskirts of Krasiv. They explained that it was supposedly a recreational area (in fact, it wasn’t).

I started looking for new locations to move the animals to when the locals ran out of legal ways to force the shelter out and started causing harm. For example, someone destroyed the bridge we built on our own to get to the pasture across the river. 

All our branches were formed after we left Krasiv. I realised that I would not be able to resist the pressure. We tried to provide “foster care” for our animals in different parts of Ukraine and looked for other stable housing options for them. The issue of finances was always acute because somewhere the rent was raised.

So, we moved some of the animals from Krasiv to the Mykolaiv centre. It already existed: earlier we were looking for new places to expand, and a friend of ours recommended this location. We do not disturb anyone there, as the neighbouring village is far away.

We took another group of animals from Krasiv to the Dnipro branch, and another one — to the Kherson shelter. Both locations were established that way. 

I would not have opened any other centre if it were not for the opposition to those who wanted to expel us. I can thank these difficulties because they helped Vuhlyk grow. Now, we have three shelters, and we are building the fourth one. Previously, there was a farm in Vasylivka in the Dnipropetrovsk region, but now it is very noisy, and it is often struck with missiles, so this branch has already been relocated to the village of Balivka for two years. 

Here we have good relations with the village council and local residents. They allow us to graze our livestock in different areas, sell at a cheaper price or give us crop residues. Vuhlyk needs more extensive support, but it is very nice to know that we are not harassed. 

Who lives in Vuhlyk

We have a lot of dogs and cats. There are also many horses, cows, and pigs. There are goats, sheep, and even ponies and donkeys, which are much smaller in number because they get into difficult circumstances less often than others. Most of all, we have cows and pigs. 

We take in as many animals as we can afford to keep. There were cases when people simply gave us their domestic animals because they were moving out of their homes. Also, 5 goats rescued from the front line by Azov soldiers (our volunteers took the animals from Kharkiv, where the military had taken them) were admitted to the shelter free of charge.

However, in 99.9% of cases, we buy back domestic animals from their owners. When people are in difficult financial conditions, it is important for them to have this money in their budget. I cannot blame them. 

However, it is difficult to determine a fair price for an animal. When we start raising funds for the redemption of an animal, we have to justify its cost, transportation costs, etc. to our followers. Our organisation is not an animal repurchasing business. When, for example, they put a price of 40,000 hryvnias for a horse, my answer is: “Sorry, we can’t afford it.” The idea of rescue is lost. 

About ahimsa and other principles of shelters for domestic animals 

I know only one shelter in Ukraine that is similar to ours — Rifugio. The rest have a different format: they are engaged in farming, selling milk and cheese. 

There is such a concept as “ahimsa” — harmonious coexistence with a cow. The calf stays with its mother and drinks the milk that was created for it. And a human only shares the milk with the calf, but does not take it away completely. There are shelters with such philosophy in Ukraine, and they rehome many animals.

Our philosophy is different. We want the animals at Vuhlyk to live the life they are meant to live —without being exploited for life. At Vuhlyk, not a single cow gives milk. And only those animals that arrived at the shelter pregnant give birth.

When a cow comes to us after a dairy farm (if the animal is healthy), at the beginning, she goes into heat on schedule: every 21 days. But later on, the sexual cycle does not take place as often as it does on farms. A cow or mare that does not feel males around stops entering regular “heat”. 

To prevent fertilisation, we castrate male animals. However, we do not sterilise female cattle: these operations are extremely complicated and can endanger the health and life of animals. This is not common practice in the West either, as far as I know. 

In Ukraine, I still do not see any large-scale steps on the part of society to save domestic animals in particular. Our subscribers are a limited group of people, and in general, there are very few people willing to save domestic animals. 

People still come to us, asking: “Why do you ask for money to keep animals, why don’t you give the livestock away to people?” 

As for adoption, we do not give animals “to families”, although in our practice there are cases of successful adoptions under an official agreement. However, there were also such situations when new owners “disappeared”. They did not even provide a small photo report documenting what was happening to the animal.

According to the agreement, if a person improperly keeps an animal and does not provide a photo report, he or she undertakes to pay for the transfer of the animal back to the shelter. However, people did not comply with these conditions either: we came and took the animals back at our own expense.

About rehabilitation programmes

Today, even statistically, more and more psychosocial problems are being recorded in children. Therefore, the rehabilitation of children with various disorders is a very, very important and significant part of our lives. 

Before the start of the full-scale war, children came to Vuhlyk not just for excursions — they could interact with the animals, for example, feed them. Such format of communication takes place only if the animals want it.

The main value of Vuhlyk is that animals do not owe anything to anyone. We have horses that want to be petted all the time: they come up, put their backs and butts to you and always ask for attention. And there are those who are like “Hey, don’t touch me.”

Equine-assisted therapy is a delicate science. It should not be like this: put a child on a horse, ride it and goodbye. Hippotherapists must complete courses, obtain diplomas in this area of treatment and be competent and responsible in their attitude to both animals and those being rehabilitated.

About the shelter under occupation and money for rescue

Our Kherson branch is located in the temporarily occupied territory. There is a photo on Instagram with a story I could not keep silent about: the Russian occupiers severely beat a shepherd and shot a cow, after which they cut off her front legs. 

I document all the atrocities committed by Russians against our animals. However, I will be able to talk about most of the cases only after the war is over and that shelter is free. Now I am silent for the safety of the animals. Every day I think and worry about whether they will survive at all.

The territory where the shelter is located was occupied a couple of hours after the full-scale invasion. Cars with animals were shot on the roads, so unfortunately, there were no options to take the animals out. There were other farmers there who wanted to evacuate, but couldn’t. Therefore, I took out in three cars only those animals (weak cats and dogs, chickens) that lived directly in my house in Chornobaivka.

It costs 6.5 thousand euros to take one large animal from the occupied territory through third countries, which is unaffordable for our organisation. I can only pray that all the bad things will pass over the people and the animals we rescued, who are now living in the occupation.

A little more about money 

Vuhlyk would like to become independent. But so far, we have not found a way to make the shelter independent of outside funding.

There are several small volunteer organisations from Japan, U.S. and the UK that are gradually supporting us. We have not yet managed to get any large organisation interested. 

It is difficult for foreigners to feel the importance of our project without being here. Of course, we regularly film and photograph animals, write posts on social media and provide reports on how we spend the money donated. 

In fact, we mostly depend on ordinary people donating one or three dollars to us. I think that the world is changed by ordinary people: they do great things even with a little help. 

I am the only one who deals with communication and attracting new patrons. Resources are limited, and I believe that any work in our project should be paid for, including the work of future marketers or grant managers. 

On personal motivation to save animals and plans for the future

Communicating with animals makes me happy. The most joyful thing for me is to see the result. Looking at the rescued animal and noticing the changes that have taken place. 

We joke at the shelter that we don’t have people riding horses, but horses — people. I am fully committed to my work, I live for the sake of the animals I have rescued. It’s hard, and there are times when I want to give up. Then I go to the shelter, sit down next to the animals, pet them, and my motivation is immediately restored.

When we lived in the Kherson region, it was close to all the branches. At that time, I could constantly communicate with the animals.

Now I am farther away from the shelters. What’s more, the weather is not conducive to travelling, and I cannot always miss my daughter’s rehabilitation classes. But once a month I go to see the animals. I believe that any activity demands full engagement, dedication, and immersion in the work, truly feeling it.

The shelter has had bad and good times. But I think if you keep working on something, it will develop. I really want Vuhlyk to become better so that you can walk into any of our shelters and say: “Wow, how cool everything is here.”  I understand that we are still very far away from this.

Our Mykolaiv branch is exemplary. It has existed for five years, and major repairs have already been done there. And the Dnipro branch has already moved three times, so it is constantly under construction. But we have a vision, so I hope that in a few years, it will become a reality as we dream.

I believe that all animals, without exception, deserve another life, and I really want to give this “another life” to as many animals as possible.

 

The cover photo is from Oleksandra’s personal archive.

Blow pipes with a hypnotic, nooses, flashlights and treats are the things that stray animal catchers always have about them. Some of them also bring a shovel to get the animal out from under the rubble (if necessary), and cardboard to avoid lying on the cold ground during observations. All for the sake of sneaking closer and catching a street animal for sterilization.

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the situation with stray animals has significantly worsened throughout Ukraine, especially in the frontline regions. This is evidenced by the results of a study conducted by  Socioinform Ukrainian Centre for Public Opinion Research. Thus, in the frontline regions, the number of cats and dogs cared for by animal volunteers has increased by an average of 60%, and in shelters — by more than 100%. 

We spoke with Khrystyna Drahomaretska and Serhii Abramov,  professional animal catchers in UAnimals sterilization missions in the east and south of the country, about why animal sterilization is the right decision in such circumstances and what is the role of catchers in this.

What is the professional path of catchers like?

Khrystyna and Serhii have in common not only cooperation with UAnimals, but also the fact that they came to the profession of animal catchers from completely different fields. Khrystyna comes from Odesa and was an architect in the past. She likes this work, but plans to return to architectural projects after the war.

Outside of work, the girl always volunteered a lot at the shelter, where dogs are fed and treated, sometimes she herself found a home for the animals or fostered them. After February 24, 2022, Khrystyna lost her job, so the girl had more time to help animals. This is how volunteering gradually turned into a new profession for Khrystyna — an animal catcher.

“A full-scale invasion began, and a lot of animals had to be evacuated. Later, we took them to shelters from the de-occupied territories as well. Then I started thinking globally about how to reduce the problem of the population of stray animals. Therefore, I got to know foreign volunteers who were ready to help with sterilization,” tells Khrystyna.

Mastering a profession that was new for her, the girl asked her colleagues about everything and also watched special videos on the Internet. Even at the beginning of her journey as a catcher, Khrystyna understood: it is very difficult to establish contact with most stray animals. Therefore, she bought the necessary equipment for catching and learnt in practice.

“I tried to say ‘come here, don’t be afraid’, but it doesn’t make sense. A wild dog looks into my eyes and sees a threat: I can catch it and lock it up somewhere. However, if it is very hungry, it will go to the smelly cat food, even in spite of its fear,” Khrystyna tells about her tricks.

The girl explains that it is cat food that most effectively attracts stray animals, even dogs. The secret here is the smell: the more fragrant the treat, the better it attracts the animal’s attention. According to this feature, even cheap sausage is superior to pieces of meat. And the consistency of the food is also important: the animal has to chew it for a long time on the spot, not grab it and run away. Therefore, catchers often use pates as bait.

Serhii is also from the south of Ukraine, from neighbouring Mykolaiv. Before the full-scale invasion, he worked as a photographer and videographer. He says that he could not even think that his life would change so dramatically. His path to becoming an animal catcher also began with volunteering.

“I came to my friend Anna Kurkurina and offered to help her with anything during the war. She had just begun an intensive process of sterilizing animals outside the city, and there was a problem: there was no one to catch them. Anna asked if I could do it, and I decided to give it a try. Experience came with time,” recalls Serhii.

The man says that the most important thing for him when catching animals is calmness. That is why he tries to clear his head of unnecessary thoughts when he goes to work.

“The animal feels your mood. Even from a distance of a few dozen metres, it understands what a person wants from it. If you are nervous, it will feel it and will not let you get close. If you know how to deal with emotions, then it is easier to catch an animal,” says Serhii.

Insights into the profession — from tools to risks

As a catcher, Serhii has already travelled all over the Mykolaiv region, helped animals from flooded Kherson and thus fulfilled orders in the east of the country. For example, in the Sumy region, he caught a huge Mastiff at the request of one of the shelters. It was this trip that the man remembers the most. He recalls that he had to drive almost across the country through snow and fog to fulfil this request. Several animal rights activists had already tried to catch the dog, but no one succeeded. Catching this dog really turned out to be an extra credit task. He even had to use a hypnotic: Serhii shot three times from a special anesthesia tube.

When catchers shoot hypnotics not from pneumatics, but from blow pipes, the animal can evade. It reacts faster than a needle with a hypnotic reaches it. Therefore, in order not to waste the drug, you need to get as close as possible to the animal. Serhii remembers: the first time he shot a dog, even with a hypnotic charge, he felt uneasy.

“I have the following point: if you can avoid shooting a dog [with a gun with a hypnotic], then I don’t do it. That’s more humane. The sound of gunshots can be traumatic for the animal, and it is better not to abuse of hypnotics,” says Serhii.

There is a detail in catching [an animal] with a hypnotic: a dog that has been hit does not fall asleep immediately. Meanwhile, the animal begins to run away, scared, and hides in places that are difficult for people to reach, such as in sewers or basements. Serhii says that sometimes you have to run a lot to catch the dog.

“Everything depends on the dog’s personality: some of them fall asleep instantly, and others run away, but there are still dogs “on adrenaline” — this hormone neutralises the anesthesia that we inject. Once I shot a dog three times with hypnotics, but it did not fall asleep. Then I couldn’t find it for a long time. Then I see: it is standing and looking at me, although by all accounts it should already have been lying down and sleeping,” tells Serhii. 

But for Khrystyna, it is mentally most difficult to work with nooses for catching animals. She says that a dog may bite its tongue or hit its muzzle in an attempt to free itself. It is difficult for the girl to look at it.

Khrystyna used to try to catch dogs with her hands, but now she has a lot of scars because of it, so she stopped doing so. She says: she was worried about every bite to avoid rabies. The work trip sometimes lasts up to a month, and the girl can’t go to the hospital there: there is not enough time or there is no hospital nearby.

“I barely convinced the doctors to give me a rabies vaccination. I told them that I worked in a war zone and caught animals biting me very often. The doctors replied: as long as there is no bite, we cannot vaccinate you. They said the drug was very expensive, and they didn’t want to waste it for no reason,” tells Khrystyna about her journey to rabies vaccination.

Fortunately, the girl eventually managed to convince the doctors with arguments that there were few people like her and every bite could be fatal for her.

Later, it saved Khrystyna’s life. Once she neglected the safety rules and did not wear rubber gloves while working with the dog. The girl touched its mucus and, without washing her hands, scratched her eye. The dog turned out to be rabid and eventually died, and Khrystyna received a new vaccination just a week after interacting with it. The catcher is sure: if it were not for the first vaccination, the infection could have already affected the brain during such a long period of time.

Even more than dog bites, the girl is afraid of cat scratches. She says that she does not understand this phenomenon, but their scratches are much more painful than dog bites. In addition, infectious irritations or purulent secretions appear as a result.

But bites and scratches are not the only dangers that threaten animal catchers, as they sometimes work just a few dozen kilometres from the places of hostilities. Therefore, in sterilization missions, you should not forget about your own safety: watch your feet carefully and react to extraneous sounds.

At the same time, Khrystyna says that sometimes it is easier to work near the demarcation line because there are no people. She explains: people often do not know about her profession and rush to protect animals, sometimes even with a fight.

“There was a situation when I shot a dog with a hypnotic. One old lady immediately ran up to me and cursed me for several generations,” says Khrystyna.

Serhii has the opposite opinion: “It is more difficult to work in frontline areas, as dogs are also stressed by explosions. They don’t understand what’s going on and panic.”

Dreams and senses in the work of catchers

Khrystyna emphasises: her dream as a professional catcher is to ensure that there are no stray animals left in Ukraine. The girl is convinced that people should adopt animals only after special training or surveys. A person must show that he/she can keep an animal and pay for its treatment. Sterilization also contributes to the reduction of stray animals. The girl had her own pet dog called Milady sterilized as well.

«I have a shepherd dog, and I sterilized her. I don’t need offspring from Milady. She is my friend, not a means of earning money on the breed,” explains Khrystyna.

Khrystyna and Serhii say that being a catcher is very exhausting. To stay in this business for a long time, you need to have stress resistance and endurance, and also understand the importance of your work.

“Few people are ready to do this job. There are people who do what thousands of others can do at work. And in order to become a catcher, you need more than just love for animals, you need a desire to understand how it works, an understanding of animal psychology,” says Khrystyna.

Serhii confirms the words of his colleague: “This is meticulous, dirty work. It takes physical and mental effort to climb through bushes, dumps and ditches to find dogs. But this is a way to help stray animals. As sometimes you see there are more and more of them, and you understand: you must solve this issue somehow.“

The man says that sometimes he has to perform more than his main duties: “Being a catcher means being a universal fighter.” For example, if a dog is injured or has an injured paw, the catcher also takes the animal to an X-ray.

It also happens that the work of catchers literally saves the lives of animals.

“Someone tied the dog’s muzzle with a piece of iron so that it could not open its mouth at all. Because of such a “muzzle mask”, the dog had not eaten anything for 2 weeks. The animal rights activists came, tried to catch it with their own hands, ran and fussed. The dog got scared and hid in an abandoned chicken coop. When I approached, the dog was sitting calmly, probably it decided to give up. We removed the piece of iron under anesthesia, and we saw that his face was cut to the bone,” says Serhii.

He is quite happy when such cases end happily: the dog not only survived, but also found a family.

The photoes of Serhii are from the photographer Gian Marco Benedetto