Baark! On: Our Weekly Sunday Dog walk

 

Every Sunday afternoon at 4:30pm, Baark! organizes a dog walk for all the dogs in the Bahamas Humane Society shelter.

Volunteers arrive with leashes in hand to take the eager dogs out for a much needed walk around their neighborhood. The dogs have spent most of the week in their kennels and are needless to say, more than excited to get going. Once the leash is in place, the dogs pull and the humans lead all in a blur of excitement.

There is a slight chaos that continues for 10 minutes at the start with everything needing to be sniffed at and examined by the curious canine nose. But soon after, the dogs settle into the walk and a calm to comes over them. It was almost as if they remember how to be a dog. Nose the ground, tongues hanging out and the occasional grateful look back towards the human walking them. The tails however are the most noticeable. Wagging tails everywhere, such happiness, such joy for these wonderful beings.

Without volunteers they would unfortunately be stuck in their cages. All it took was the ability to open the cage, but it was not something that the dogs could do for themselves. A cage was holding these dogs back until the doors were opened, allowing them the space to be the fabulous dogs they were meant to be.

Life in a shelter, while keeping them alive and safe is hard for dogs. Dogs tend to be more stressed and often have a hard time gaining weight and keeping their coat healthy. All due to stress, The staff at the shelter do amazing jobs with such care but the bottom line is that it is not a natural place for an animal to be and therefore stressful.

Why does Baark! do this? Because although our primary focus is our spay and neuter programs we recognize there are many dogs that still require a forever home and deserve to live with respect and compassion. We support the Bahamas Humane Society’s massive efforts to take in needy and helpless animals. We want to help the dogs find their homes and believe that helping them socialize around safe humans is one way to help them with successful adoptions.

Baark! is proud to provide this small but important service to the amazing dogs at the Bahamas Humane Society. Please consider joining us on Sundays at 4:30pm for this marvelous hour of dog walking.

Please spay and neuter your animals, this simple procedure saves lives and decreases the suffering of unwanted animals.

This column is proudly brought to you by BAARK!

The Bahamas Alliance for Animal Rights and Kindness

For more information contact us at info@baarkbahamas.org, (427.SPAY) or visit our website www.baarkbahamas.com