1/7 Shepherd Roemba. (Photo: Karin Kamp)
This summer, Els Adams and her Animal and Project foundation took care of fifteen traumatized dogs that were scheduled to be put down. They had previously been seized during a raid on the premises of the controversial breeder Jan Paridaas in Eersel and subsequently ended up at so-called warehouses. We follow five ‘dogs from Eersel’: German shepherd Roemba, Keeshond Nika, Labrador Mambo, Jack Russell Igor and springer spaniel Truus. How are they doing now?
When the animals arrived at Els and her team’s shelter in Nispen, they were doing anything but well. In their often young lives they had already been through so much that their trust in people had disappeared. The more than seven hundred dogs were kept at the bread breeder in appalling conditions, often with too many animals in polluted cages and with dirty drinking water.
“Nika wanted to nip at your fingers.”
Nika was one of them. “We really had to drive this tiny Keeshond into a corner to grab her, and when you picked her up, she sometimes wanted to snap at your fingers,” says Els.
“Nika finds everything exciting,” she continues. “We build it up slowly, by always doing a little more than the day before. And then yesterday’s experience is no longer scary. So we can now put on a leash for a walk without any problem. And then she walks very bravely next to you, like, we’re doing that well, aren’t we.”
German shepherd Roemba was also in bad shape. She was given a place alone, in a room that was pleasantly decorated with paintings on the wall. She sat quietly on the bed, her eyes defeated. “Hello beautiful lady, you are doing so well,” Els whispered to her. The dog regularly vomited, probably an expression of stress.
“It is an easy animal, potentially a dream dog,” says Els. “Roemba can explain very clearly to a fellow dog what she likes and doesn’t like. She speaks the dog language in a good way. And, like a real shepherd, she chooses the people she goes for. She likes to cuddle, a big difference from before, when she didn’t even dare to look at you.”
Igor’s passport said: ‘Very aggressive’. At the shelter they decided to leave the Jack Russell alone for a while. “We only gave him nice things and left him feeling a little better.”
“Igor is actually very sweet, but he managed to disguise that well.”
It was a dog with fear and balls, because he was not neutered. “Igor had to do something because of his hormones that he actually didn’t dare. Everything was terrifying, but he still had to show a little bravado,” Els explains. “And that creates a kind of conflict.”
He was recently neutered, and his behavior has changed considerably. “Igor is actually very sweet, but he managed to disguise that very well in the beginning,” she laughs. “Now he is going to enjoy life. That it is quite nice to lie against someone on the couch. Even though he is small, he makes giant leaps in his confidence.”
Will these ‘dogs from Eersel’ be okay? Do they have enough resilience to eventually end up with a new owner? Els can’t say it yet. “Fear still has the upper hand. First you get a period in which the animals tolerate someone touching them. Then comes a phase in which we check whether they no longer run away when we pet them. And at a certain point they start having fun with it.”
“And the great thing is,” she continues, “the dogs mainly look away from each other. That is why it is important that they live in a pack. We can never explain them as much as they can explain each other.”
