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1000 Adopted Korean Rescue Dogs!

January 2, 2021 by Sara Liao, Board of Directors & Adoption Manager Leave a Comment

It’s official! With the adoption of our beautiful Great Pyrenees named Great, Free Korean Dogs has now successfully found forever homes for 1000 Korean rescue dogs (and counting!) in Canada and the US.

Great, the 1000th adopted dog

Great is a very special girl to many of us at FKD, so it came as no surprise she would be the one to take the hallmark position of being the 1000th adopted dog. All one had to do was hear about Great’s sweet and goofy personality to fall in love with her; seeing her photos would deepen it, and meeting her would cement it. But as exceptional of a dog Great is, there is sadly nothing unique about her story.

Great was rescued from a high kill shelter and ended up living in our partner boarding house for over 3 years without any prospects of adoption before she flew to Canada. As a large breed dog, she faced travel restrictions and had to undergo a stringent diet in order to meet the travel criteria to board her flight. Had she not, she would have spent the rest of her life as a shelter dog, which is not much of a life at all. Every year, millions of dogs in Korea are thoughtlessly abandoned, needlessly euthanized, and callously murdered. Those who are saved spend the remainder of their days institutionalized in overwhelmed, humble shelters without the intervention of international adoption programs.

Lonely shelter life in Korea
Great found her forever family
Cozy home
Happy life in Canada

Looking Back to the Beginning:

Free Korean Dog’s very first adopted rescue dog was from a chicken farm where the owner was raising dogs on the side in order to sell to the dog meat market. They were tied up outdoors on short chains and fed rotten scraps of chicken meat and provided little water.

Looking back, EK would probably describe the experience as ‘chaotic’. Being a one-person organization at the time, she was fastidiously advocating to secure the safety needs of the rescue dogs during the day while frantically googling topics such as “how to transport a dog to Canada” in the late hours of the night. She didn’t yet have the right connections or the knowledge and experience, but determination propelled her forward. She was never afraid to stand up for what she believed in, even when she was standing alone.

We didn’t fully “get it” on day 1 and we still can’t claim to have a perfect system even now, but failure became the best teacher and inadvertent stepping stone to the successes and milestones we have since achieved. In fact, we might have learned more from our failures than triumphs, of which the former has pushed us to constantly learn and evolve. Today, we since have collaborated with hundreds of talented individuals, each and every one who brought something unique to the table.

Looking Forward to the Future:

In the grand scheme of things, it would be impossible to save every dog. But thanks to a community of compassionate people we were able to change the lives of 1000 dogs. It’s been a rollercoaster of a ride, but we’re not ready for it to end. Whether this ride takes us up, down, sideways, or in circles, we’re hanging on and looking towards the next 1000 rescues!

Support Free Korean Dogs

Written by Sara Liao, Board of Director & Adoption Manager  

More like this:

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  • Korean Rescue Dogs Land in Winnipeg
    Korean Rescue Dogs Land in Winnipeg

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Filed Under: Blog, Featured Tagged With: Adoption, Dangjin Dog Meat Farm, Dog meat trade, Toronto Dog Adoption

About Sara Liao, Board of Directors & Adoption Manager

Sara has always been active member the non-profit community, both professionally and in volunteer roles. She is also a lifelong animal lover and known to always stop to pet stray dogs and cats during her travels. Her two passions match well in her role in helping dogs find their forever homes. Along with dogs, Sara is a lover of pigs, cows, and goats, and believes in the words of her favorite activists, “be kind to all kinds”.

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About Us

Free Korean Dogs (FKD) is a registered charity in Canada (BN:80580 0166RR0001). Free Korean Dogs US (FKD US) is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization #85-2573367 in the USA, with charitable organization registrations in the following States: Washington #2004912, Oregon #58908 & California #0274571. Learn more

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Animal welfare is our top priority; especially because many of our rescued dogs were harmed either physically and/or emotionally in the past. Learn more

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