About Biggie and Nobody’s Dogs

I’ve wondered if I should write this while feeling so sad. Still unsure if these emotions belong on paper. There’s little point in delving into the shadows of rescue work—especially so near to Christmas. Our dogs aren’t victims, they’re survivors. Yet, for many, the battle is too hard. Sometimes it feels too hard for us as well. If we struggle to cope, what chance does a defenseless dog have against all odds?

The emergency dogs, the ones born or dumped in the middle of nowhere —if not shot or drowned—are nobody’s dogs. No one cares. They are every bit as loyal, sweet, sentient being, capable of love and suffering, as the pampered poodle next door. The only difference is that they’re unloved. Their beauty, intelligence, abilities and potential don’t matter. Their soul doesn’t matter. They only know indifference or cruelty from people. That sadness in their eyes when we first meet is undeniable, piercing, and the deepest hurt of all.

Some are puppies, mature far beyond their age. Some are adults who’ve never felt a kind human touch. Others once knew kindness but were discarded like broken toys—they’ll never understand why. They’re scared and confused, and we don’t have an answer to that question, either. All we can do is sit with them, so they feel a little less alone—feed them, keep them safe, and share the same hope they have, that their human will come. People ask how many kg they weigh. And what breed – what label – we can put on them. What do you respond to that? That they have beautiful, sad eyes? That they have so much love to give?

Biggie is just another “nobody’s dog”. Months ago, when she was just a puppy, she suffered a catastrophic injury at the hands of a so-called human—her whole lower back shattered. She is clinging to life since, a frail shadow of the dog she should have been. Whoever hurt her—whether by accident in a car crash or through a brutal beating—left her in immense pain, disabled, and abandoned in the bush to die. But Biggie survived. Barely. Her young bones healed, though twisted and misaligned. One femoral head was crushed along the growth plate and will never heal.

When Biggie came to us, she tried to walk and hide her injury. She had good reason to do so—in her short nine months of life, she’d had no one to trust. In the wild, weakness is a death sentence. And not just in the wild. In our world, she is nobody’s dog: too broken to be adoptable, too expensive to fix.

Biggie overcame horrific injuries and pain only few can imagine. And that’s all she knew: she was injured before she ever had the chance to live. Biggie is a survivor, yet still no one’s dog. Who would help a random, broken dog who means nothing to them? And how many like her are out there: nobody’s dogs, who don’t count and don’t matter, invisible under the lip service praising how “human” we are?