The Story of Tips & Foxi
During one of Sabine’s daily dog walks, she heard the sad cries of puppies, and went to investigate. She found two pups tied up on 1-meter-long chains next to a pig shed, close to her house. The puppies were half a meter from each other, without access to water or food. One of the dogs had an injured and infected eye, while the other one had the metal chain on so tight, that it was starting to grow into his neck. Sabine immediately gave them food and water and went to look for the owners of the dog who lived nearby. With her vast experience living in Bali, she knew that the only way to make a long term and sustainable impact on the lives of these animals was by talking to the owners calmly and trying to make agreements with them, small steps at a time.
The owner explained that they kept the dogs as security for their pigs, and agreed to let Sabine call a vet to examine the eyes and vaccinate the dogs at her own cost. Unfortunately the owner had previously kicked one dog in the eye and in turn, had damaged its sight. After the visit with the vet, the owners agreed that Sabine could buy new collars and longer tethers for the dogs as well as take them on walks twice a day with her own pack. From that day on, Sabine provided dry dog food that the owner would mix with the rice they had been exclusively feeding the dogs previously. It took a couple of months to treat the eye infection and the next step was to get the poor dogs off their leads.
The owners had a brick structure on their property that wasn’t being used, and by providing a bamboo fence and door, Sabine was able to convince the owners that the dogs would still provide security for the pigs while being in their sheds to avoid tying them up unnecessarily.
Ultimately, the dogs were finally able to get off their leads and had a small space on which they could run around, remain safe, play and sleep. After a few weeks, Sabine started to “forget” to lock the door to the shed after their walks, and the dogs started to visit their owners at the house. Now that the dogs were healthy and clean, the owners started letting the dogs stay in their house and chose not to lock them up any longer.
To this day, the dogs live in the same house as their owners, while protecting the pigs, and following their owners to their work on the rice fields every day. The dogs still come twice a day to our foundation to get extra food, and are very happy to go home afterward.
