Faced with the choice of giving up their best friend or being accommodated in social housing where pets aren’t always welcome, many homeless people will choose to remain on the street.
“Think to yourself, if you were alone and you have something beautiful like this in your life, what would you do to protect it?” asked one dog owner who is homeless in Ruff Sleepers – A Dog-umentary.
Another owner said he’d made a makeshift dog shelter that he could see from the window of his new housing that didn’t allow pets – but soon realised it was crazy to be separated.
“If you experience the bond you can have with a dog, it’s one of the greatest gifts in life.”
Not surprisingly, the grateful dog lover quickly returned to sleeping rough, with his furry companion by his side.
Ruff Sleepers is a Sydney-based not-for-profit charity that takes care of homeless people’s pets. It offers a free and mobile pet washing service, access to flea and worm treatments, referrals to free vet clinics and information about services for homeless people with dogs.
Last September, it was awarded a $101,000 grant by the NSW government’s My Community project, to help it purchase a grooming van with warm water, which would mean it could take care of more dogs, serve more locations, and connect more volunteers to homeless people who own dogs.
Ruff Sleepers received the grant courtesy of an impressive number of votes from its community supporters. It’s still working to make the new grooming van a reality but, in the meantime, a variety of hoses, buckets and brushes are being happily employed in its work.
On Sunday January 12, despite Sydney’s bushfire smoke, the Ruff Sleepers team washed dogs in Woolloomooloo on the corner of Forbes and Cathedral streets – and 2 year-old Barry stole everybody’s heart.
When Coco and Mon Cherie turned up to be pampered everyone was extremely pleased to learn that Mon Cherie had fully recovered from her lifesaving emergency surgery provided by Ruff Sleepers partner Project HoPe.
The Ruff Sleepers team provides these grooming, information and support sessions on the second Sunday of each month, offering tea and biscuits to the dog owners; a pet nutrition information kit; and free dog food and other pet accessories (courtesy of Give a Dog a Bone).
Its volunteers also create a safe and discrimination-free place where homeless people and their furry friends can connect with other pets and pet lovers, and also access help.
Dr Bronwen Dalton is associate professor at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) Business School and Director of its Masters of Not-for-Profit and Social Enterprise Program. She founded Ruff Sleepers in early 2017 with Linda Castelazzi and Tully Rosen as a social enterprise (under the auspices of UTS) and its dedicated team has washed and groomed more than 100 dogs since then.
Dr Dalton says the team is also passionate about:
- Raising money for an emergency fund for homeless people’s pets that need lifesaving surgery.
- Advocating to ensure homeless people are able to have their pets with them in their housing – some of whom depend on their pets to help them feel safe.
- Enhancing public awareness of the value of pet ownership for the mental and physical health of people doing it tough.
Linda Castellazzi says a pet is often the only source of unconditional love for a homeless person and Ruff Sleepers works to protect the important bond between a human and their furry family.
“Many people sleeping rough have told me they try to remain clean from drugs or alcohol because they have to make sure to be alert in case something bad happens to their dog. The dog makes them feel responsible and, in many cases, saves them.”
As one appreciative dog owner says: “I struggle with mental health issues, but my dog actually helps me get out of bed, because I have to take her for a walk.”
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Donate to Ruff Sleepers at www.ruffsleepers.org/donate or to volunteer email ruffsleepers@gmail.com.
