Boredom in Kuwait Equals Dog Abandonment -- Mission Wings of Love Kuwait

"I had a flight attendant friend who rescues cats, and her and I were in a jump seat and got to talking. I said, 'Oh, I know, I see so many dogs', and she said, 'If you're not doing anything on your layover, come with me and meet some of these women'."

"The kennels are horrible. [Often owners] literally take these dogs out in the middle of the street, tie them to a tree, and walk away."

Patricia Riska, flight attendant, Baltimore

Wings of Love Kuwait

"It's not uncommon to see these exotic designer dogs that are just tossed out. There's a whole culture of [seeing] dogs as being dispensable, a thing."

"He [Chance, found with over 100 BB pellets lodged in his body, and missing a paw] was probably chained to something and we think he chewed off his paw to get away."

"They ['desert dogs'] have that long, lean look, and the curly tail. They're tough dogs, and they tend to be very bright."

"They're viewed as being just stray dogs in Kuwait, and here they look exotic."

Jennifer Yoon, co-founder, vice-president, Wings of Love

Wings of Love Kuwait

Wings of Love Kuwait is a charity founded by two women who saw an opportunity to rescue discarded dogs of all breeds by a society that obviously views these intelligent and affectionately loyal creatures as mere playthings, to be owned for a while, then discarded. Baltimore flight attendant Patricia Riska, during her regular layovers in Kuwait City had noted the presence of a multitude of dogs in the city's streets. Hungry, lost and frightened -- passers-by, obviously inured to their presence and disinterested in their welfare -- would simply walk by ignoring them, sometimes kicking them out of the way.

By chance a conversation she had with another flight attendant led her to a group of women in Kuwait who were doing what they could to help stray dogs and cats. Though pet cafes and pet shops have proliferated in the last decade in Kuwait as numbers of pet dogs rose, there was also a "sudden explosion of dogs on the streets -- visible in the mornings and late evenings scavenging for food", as described in an article that appeared in the English-language daily Kuwait Times.

The situation is redolent of a culture of wealth where people have surplus discretionary funds in spades, and are attracted to prestigious new social acquisitions, and in Kuwait that would be the acquisition and ownership of costly purebred dogs of all descriptions, ordered from breeders abroad. Once the animals arrive from Europe they're brought into a Kuwaiti home, maintained for a year and then set loose to fend for themselves as best they can. 

Wings of Love Kuwait

There doesn't appear to be an outcry from within the community damning this brutal abandonment of dependent animals. Many of whom are incapable of fending for themselves and starve to death, or are injured as a result of mistreatment from people or attacks by other dogs, or exhaustion from the summer heat that can ratchet up to 54C. The dogs can be seen around markets, nothing but skin and bones and the resolve to somehow go on living.

Urged by her conscience, Patricia Riska began bringing one or two dogs at a time back with her on the 14-hour trip to the U.S. and her home state of Maryland. A friend in Houston adopted the first dog she returned with, which encouraged her to return with another  and then another. Finally, she and Jennifer Yoon formed their rescue operation, a non-profit, and from that time forward, kept bringing dogs into the U.S. from Kuwait. In the years since the founding of their rescue in 2015, they brought 535 dogs of various breeds for adoption in the U.S.

Wings of Love Kuwait

They worked with a woman in Kuwait committed to rescuing dogs from the streets and sheltering them on her farm. Most of the rescues have found homes in Baltimore and area; some in Washington, D.C., and in Virginia. Baltimore has been accustomed to seeing rescued pit bulls looking for homes. The purebred Yorkies and Maltese, Labrador or German shepherd mixes and the Saluki-type dogs have become popular adoptees in Baltimore. After Dubai and Kuwait, Maryland is the third location with the largest population of "Arabian village dogs", according to DNA tests on Embark, a genetic profiling company for dogs.

The adoption fee is $500 meant to cover expenses, and those interested in adopting are vetted, then matched with dogs that appear a good fit. Adopters must be prepared to spend a week or two with the dog of their choice before formal adoption is completed, to ensure they are a good match. The all-volunteer organization offsets costs through fund-raising and operates on a yearly budge of $100,000. The group now brings in rescue dogs from Lebanon as well as Kuwait.

Saleh at the dog shelter in Lebanon. (Courtesy Photo / Youssef Saleh)

A Worthy Cause 

Wilson stands outside his home and watches young kangaroos as they feed and drink, in his front yard in New South Wales, Australia, on January 28, 2020.

Jorge Silva/Reuters 

"We had way too many animals in the house and around the house so we really couldn't go -- we decided we were going to stay and fight."
"At three o'clock it was a beautiful summer's day, by four o'clock it was midnight. You couldn't see any more than 20 yards and then the firestorm came through and pretty much burned everything."
"It was a horrible thing -- the whole bush has been burnt. It's been vaporized -- it's Vietnam is what it looks like."
"It's not until after the fires when it really hits you how close you were to dying but at the time you are too busy trying to put the fire out."
"We didn't have children ourselves; this is what we spend our time doing. We think it's worthy -- a worthy cause -- looking after our babies no matter what they are, whether they are kangaroos, echidnas or wombats."
Julie Willis, Wytaliba, New South Wales, Australia

Julie Willis, an animal carer, feeds orphaned kangaroo joeys, in an area of her home designated for the pre-release of kangaroos, in the community of Wytaliba, New South Wales, Australia January 28, 2020. REUTERS/Jorge Silva

The Wytaliba home of Gary Wilson and Julie Willis, a house built of cypress-pine, has doubled as a wildlife sanctuary for a quarter of a century. The small community in Wytaliba, New South Wales, originally a commune built in the 1970s, saw a bushfire sweep through the area on November 8. Several of the people living in Wytaliba lost their lives. Gary Wilson and Julie Willis decided not to evacuate their timber home in view of the fact that they were giving life and haven to orphaned baby animals, mostly joeys.

An orphaned kangaroo joey Julie Willis rescued- January 28, 2020.

Jorge Silva/Reuters

They spent an exhausting fourteen hours using fire extinguishers, water pumps and a sprinkler system to put out burning embers falling from the bushfire through the sky onto the roof of their home. It was hard work, but they had executed a determined plan of action and with Lady Fortune on their side, managed to keep the fire at bay, although everything around them was consumed by the ravaging flames.

REUTERS/Jorge Silva

They felt little option left to them but to act as they did, to preserve the lives of the dozen marsupials hanging from fabric pouches in their living room. Along with nursing the orphans kangeroos that they had earlier nurtured, now full grown, as well as other wildlife that had long left their care, and have returned to the house searching for refuge from the flames.

Most animals, explained Willis, like possums, gliders, echidnas, lizards and many birds were unable to flee the fires that overtook their flight. Fires that she described as more fierce than any she had ever before seen.

This year's bushfire season, fierce and prolonged in Australia, has killed 33 people and demolished an estimated billion native animals since the fires began back in September, destroying 2,500 homes and seeing over 11.7 million hectares of tinder-dry bushland razed. Fallout from the monstrous fires continues, with food scarcity and water tainted with ash devastating local wildlife, increasing the number of boarders at the Wytaliba home.

Wilson and Willis have gone from rescuing joeys after their mothers have been struck by vehicles, to hosting an increasing number of orphans whom the raging fires created. The joeys are fed a particular milk formula every two-to-four hours and will eventually be released back into the wild. For now, it's Julie Willis, Gary Wilson and the tiny refugees living in the off-the-grid home, surrounded by scorched bush and burnt-out vehicles.

Orphaned kangaroo joeys that were rescued during the bushfire season sit in cloth pouches hung in the living room of partners Gary Wilson and Julie Willis's home, in the community of Wytaliba, New South Wales, Australia, on January 28, 2020.

Jorge Silva/Reuters