Photo by Catarina Carvalho on Unsplash

I learned to keep it real for good

But I had my heart broken on the way (and no, it’s not a love story.)

In memory of Bessie, Mr Ferret and thousands of others.

How it started

Back in my home country, I was a journalist. When my life took an unexpected turn and I moved to the UK in 2007 I needed a new job — at the end of the day, I’m not an English native speaker so clearly it was a goodbye to my career in journalism. I didn’t mind it too much as my personal reasons outweighed professional ones but I needed to earn a living somehow.

I have always loved dogs — particularly underdogs. I’m a firm supporter of the slogan “adopt, don’t shop” (always have, always will) and used to be a volunteer in a dog shelter so I figured it would be a good path to pursue. And very neatly I fell into a classic trap: an Eastern European (that’s me but you can insert here any background, save for North-Western Europe, North America and Australia) made to believe the UK had a very high level of animal welfare and ethical standards as far as dog rescues were concerned.

I got a job in a very well known and much-loved shelter in London ran by a 150-year-old well-funded charity. The quality of the kennels and daily care blew my mind — in comparison with what I was used to back home. I…