Hi – my name is Gianni and I was rescued from the streets of Albania. I am named after the Greek Freak from the World Champ Milwaukee Bucks. I am now in the US looking for my forever home. Here is my rescue story as written by my rescuer. Thanks for reading.
Gianni came right up to us right away for petting and food.
We first found Gianni along the side of a rural road, outside of Tirana, Albania. He showed up one day when we were feeding a group of puppies.
Unfortunately, this seems to be a location where people regularly dump litters of puppies or unwanted dogs.
The road the dogs lived on was next to a river. There were herdsmen who took their goats along the river, and farms nearby. The farmers were wary of the group of dogs that lived along the side of the roadway, because they had chickens.
There are many dogs on the street in Albania, and there are some volunteers who regularly work to feed and provide medical care to them. Dogs as pets are not a typical “thing” yet in Albania, and many people are living with minimal means that don’t include pets.
The municipality in Albania frequently picks up
dogs and euthanizes them, or people will poison them, so they are often in
danger.
We took a few days in July (2020) to travel and while we were gone, the rescue worker who was feeding them noticed that Gianni hadn’t come when he stopped to feed them. After checking with a contact at the municipality, he discovered that the dogs had been picked up. The dogs are taken to a “special” veterinary hospital that is specifically used to kill street dogs. With the help of the contact, we were able to get the dogs back just in time, but had to promise they would not be on the road again, or they would not get another chance.
He spent the next several months first at the vet hotel, then living at the villa with Mike, our own dog Bella, and then Holly after she was found.