Freja whistled and the animals emerged from the ruins.
… I only worked with Freja for a few months, but her knowledge of dogs was outstanding and I learned a lot.
Freja Mille Que
The drive down to Slovyansk in the Donetsk Oblast takes you through Izium, a town made notorious when 470 murder victims were found in shallow graves in the forest.
The town is very much like other towns in the area, in peace time it would have been a pleasant place to be, it would have been colourful, vibrant and steeped in history going back as far as the neolithic. It was a destination, somewhere you want to goto on days out.
It was pretty.
But not now. The fighting there had been raging for months - intense shelling and rockets had raised parts of the town to nothing more that rubble.
Getting around was a maze of temporary bridges, cleared mine fields and check points. the snow and the freezing temperatures only made it more daunting.
The highest point in town was a hill called seven winds (one side you could see down to the Russian trenches and the other down to the town of Izium) and seven wind was an apt name, especially in the cold! At the top there was a restaurant called Sim Vitriv and it was in these snow covered ruins where we stopped and Freja made hers calls.
We stayed around for as long as possible to make sure we fed them all. Leaving long lines of kibble and scattered the canned food to make sure they didn’t squabble.
This was a familiar occurrence, a daily routine from A-B on rescue mission, but with stops to feed the less fortunate.
Thank you to all the people that donated funds and food to us, without you we could not keep these souls alive. You can see how hungry they were - but rest assure that every time we passed we always gave out the call - it sometimes took. a while, but slowly they would emerge, shaky and nervous - but the time Freja put into them made them confident, and that helped us to fill their tummy’s.
Freja is still working with us. Based in Denmark she regularly makes trips out to Ukraine, but also in gathering food and supplies from Denmark.
Please keep on helping us to help them, whatever this crazy world we live in delivers, we still need to deliver food to these guys.
