08/03/2025
🇺🇸💔 This is the America we’re living in right now. 💔🇺🇸
Liz got a call from an old rescue friend. She’s not in rescue anymore, but she reached out because she knew someone who desperately needed help. A man she knew was leaving the US as soon as possible for the fear of being deported or put into a detention center, and he had no one else to turn to.
He came to the U.S. from Russia two years ago on a work visa, speaking very little English, hoping to build a better life. Alone in a foreign country, his only family became his dog, Kevin.
Kevin was his everything.
But now, the U.S. is forcing him to make tough decisions. He spent every last dollar securing travel documents and arranging to return to a country he no longer feels safe in. Kevin, heartbreakingly, can’t go with him.
He was devastated. Not just because he was leaving, but because he was being torn away from the one constant source of comfort and love he had here.
He couldn’t afford medical care for Kevin’s skin infection because every penny went to the logistics of his return to Russia. But he didn’t stop trying to do the right thing. He found someone who found Liz, and that led him to us.
We made him a promise: Kevin would be cared for in every possible way. That his best friend wouldn’t be abandoned. And that he didn’t have to carry this heartbreak alone.
When Liz met him to pick up Kevin, she said it was the saddest thing she’s ever done in rescue. This wasn’t an owner who didn’t want their dog. This was a man forced to say goodbye to the one soul that made his life bearable.
We talk a lot about irresponsible ownership, and yes, it’s everywhere. But this, this is different. This was love. This was sacrifice. This was a man shattered by a system that never made space for him to thrive.
We are heartbroken. We are angry. And we are deeply ashamed of how this country treats people who come here simply looking for a better life.
Hold your dogs close tonight. And if you want to help Kevin and dogs like him, we welcome your support, because the systems that fail people are the same ones failing animals.