“I come from Iran. Twenty years ago I went through a bad...

“I come from Iran.  Twenty years ago I went through a bad break-up, and afterwards I went to the top of a mountain to think.  There I found a pack of hungry dogs.  I bought some chicken and began to feed them.  They wagged their tails.  There was happiness in their eyes.  And that was enough for me.  I began to come back once a week.  Then three times a week.  And I started to learn about the terrible life of dogs in my country.  Some of the dogs began to disappear, and people would tell me the municipality had killed them.  That’s when I decided to create the first dog shelter in Tehran.  I ran it alone for fourteen years.  I had to buy the food, pay the salaries, nobody would help.  Many people in Islam think that dogs are unclean.  It was very difficult.  At the time I owned a shop selling tires, and half of my income went to the shelter.  I grew very depressed.  Our shelter could only handle one hundred dogs, but 10,000 were being killed every year.  It wore me down.  I didn’t have the energy for it.  Two years ago I handed off the shelter to a brave young girl, and I moved to Canada.  I’m working as a barber now.  But I still send money to the shelter.  And every day I come to this bench and feed the squirrels.”
(Montreal, Canada)