013 | Karolina Joniec & Lou, a life altering travel souvenir from Nicaragua

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A travel souvenir from Nicaragua

Imagine falling in love with two abandoned 5 weeks old street dog puppies whilst abroad in Nicaragua. The second you lay eyes on them you know you’re in trouble because you’re not going to give these dogs up.

So you crowdfund in pre-crowdfunding days to get the money together to bring these dogs to the Netherlands. Once they get there you find out, that the vet abroad provided you with falsified papers and you lose your now-teenage dogs to a 4 months quarantine.
After that, there’s inter-household fighting, the heartbreak of rehoming one of the siblings, and trying to find the best way to help your heart dog deal with the anxiety of living in the Dutch capital city of Amsterdam.

On a scale of 0 to 10 how would you rate…

This is when Lou, like so many dogs on this podcast, turns Karolina’s life upside down. She puts Karolina on a completely new life path directed toward animal welfare.

Listen to Karolina talk about the importance of vet checks, nutrition and taking a holistic approach to animal wellbeing.

Included in her story is how she learned like all of us that not everyone who has had dogs for longer than we have knows more about them, and be gobsmacked like I was about her use of a simple mental 0-10 reactivity scale as a way to track Lou’s improvement.

Lou’s a 2-3 on that scale now most days and loves man-trailing and dog-trailing.

Links

The Facebook Group Karolina co-moderates with her friends (highly recommended for its positive non-judgemental vibe):

Expats with Dogs in Amsterdam

and her own group focusing on all things cat&dog, such as dietary choices, places to buy food, natural remedies, behavior, etc.

Undogmatic – dogs and cats in Amsterdam