A 53-year-old woman named Wen Li has opened up a rescue shelter in
Pingliang city in Gansu province which has become a home for 220 stray
dogs since 2011.
Determined to do a good deed for man’s best friend, Wen decided to
quit her job as a middle school teacher and transform a scruffy farm
house into a loving home for strays. The kind-hearted lady treats her
dogs like “little dolls” and calls herself their “grandma” — taking
care of them like they were her own grandkids.
In order to provide all those pooches with a warm shelter, Wen ended
up spending her entire life savings, renting and sprucing up the farm
house, CCTV News reports. Over the past five years, she has welcomed a
total of 220 strays, brought in by herself or by other animal lovers.
However, the more dogs she houses, the more expenses that she has to
cover.
Wen confessed that she was under a lot of pressure, shouldering a
huge burden running the dog shelter. “The dogs eat two meals every day.
Each meal includes 80 biscuits, 7.5 kg of dog food and 2.5 kg of beef
livers, costing a few hundred yuan per day, which becomes a whopping
100,000 yuan each year,” she said. However, thanks to the money she
makes at her part-time job and some generous donations from charitable
people, she has been able to keep the shelter going.
Sadly, being with her dogs all day has driven most of her relatives
away, leaving only her daughter by her side, Toutiao reports. To make
things worse, she has been forced to take out a loan from the bank and
borrow 100,000 yuan from her relatives to keep the place going.
When facing a personal financial crisis last year, she even sold an
apartment that was supposed to be part of her daughter’s dowry. Still,
her daughter has always been supportive of her mom’s mission, even
agreeing to help her sell the apartment, but other relatives aren’t
quite so understanding.
“My relatives broke off all relations with me. Honestly it isn’t a
bad thing because now I have more spare time to care for my dogs,” Wen
said, ever the optimist.
When asked why she quit her job to care for stray dogs, Wen replied
that she simply couldn’t leave those poor dogs behind and looking after
them is a responsibility that she takes very seriously. “Any person with
a conscience would do the same thing! Can you imagine what would happen
to the city if we abandoned all those dogs?” she said.
Because of its small size, the rescue shelter can only hold 220 dogs
at one time. Wen has to handle all the daily chores on her own, cleaning
the shelter, feeding the dogs and giving them injections. She has
attempted to hire people to help her part-time, but they have all left
after a week, whining about low pay and poor conditions.
While China is infamous for its annual Yulin Dog Meat Festival,
where an estimated 10,000 dogs are slaughtered and served as food, it
is also home to many selfless dog lovers who have devoted their lives to
rescuing strays from the slaughterhouse. One father and daughter duo
from Hebei have provided a loving home for over 300 dogs in the last 13 years:
And this former millionaire from Changchun has gone broke saving strays: