Valia Orfanidou is a woman who has rescued many stray dogs in her life. She walks her dogs every day in the Athens area, and one ordinary evening she had no idea what was going to happen to her. The dog she found by chance changed her life completely!
The stray dog approached her with its tail raised and a friendly demeanour.
“She recognised us in a good way because she eagerly sought company, joined in and tried to fit in,” says Valia.
People’s reaction to this dog was unexpectedly bad. Many wrote publicly on their Facebook profiles that they were afraid of the dog and that it can have a bad influence on tourists who spend their holidays carefree on the beach. Not in a peaceful tone, many wanted the dog removed from the beach.
“There are millions of dogs that are homeless in Greece and there are no proposals on how to solve this problem, the situation here will not change in the future, there will surely be millions more soon,” Valia said.
Valia volunteers for various rescue organisations as well as for safe houses in Greece.
“It’s not easy to go out into the field – you either have to deliberately ignore the stray dogs or come home with the twelve rescued puppies.”
This dog, who was playfully waiting for someone to like him and give him love, was about 7 months old. Valia knew “at first sight” that he was her new family member. She could see that the dog was beside himself with joy at her presence. This dog longed for human companionship, but also for family members in whom she would find peace and happiness.
Valia thought for days about how she could help the dog, and then she had an amazing idea! Since the dog was extremely friendly and had a big heart, she decided to send Blue to the Netherlands through her contacts. Why there? Because there is a clinic in the Netherlands that uses dogs as therapy so that patients can get better as quickly as possible and spend their time in hospital as well as possible.