By Lucy Notarantonio
A crossbreed called Wendy was saved from a kill shelter in Romania to start a new life. However, this meant leaving behind her brother, Koda—the only companion she had ever known.The separation was heartbreaking but seen as Wendy’s only chance at a better future. Her journey began at the end of March and she has been at Oakwood Dog Rescue in Hull, England, ever since.Speaking to Newsweek, Maria, the kennel manager, described the one-year-old large dog—mostly white with a patch on her back and eye—as deeply traumatized when she arrived.”Wendy was heartbroken,” Maria explained. “She was shut down and confused. She was too worried to interact with any of the other dogs and was even more worried with the scary humans around her, she was not used to kindness from a person before.”Forty-four days later, Wendy had a surprise when her one-year-old brother Koda arrived at the shelter after also being rescued from Romania, by another charity.”They kept looking over at each other in the field, clearly too worried to interact because people were around. We could see they were desperate to greet other, so we left the field and hid out of sight.”Koda went straight over sniffling Wendy all over, his tail starting wagging and he gave her so many kisses. Wendy was still overwhelmed by everything that had happened to her. So, she didn’t let her guard down quite so much, but she clearly recognized him and was happy to see him.”Once they’d had time outside together, we placed them into the same kennel and later found them cuddled up tight to one another having probably the best sleep that they’d had in a long time.”Day by day, Wendy is becoming more confident and has started approaching volunteers for treats.Maria told Newsweek: “Koda is always her number one play mate, they absolutely adore each other,” Maria said. “He is a very quiet boy, very chilled out and prefers to sit back and watch the action. He wants no trouble.”He is still understandably extremely wary of us but has also recently begun to be brave enough to come forward and take treats from some of the staff. They’ve both been through so much trauma, it’s going to take a long time for them to let their guard down and show us their true personalities.”Ideally, the shelter hopes to keep Wendy and Koda together in adoption.Maria told Newsweek: “However we know how hard it is to place one dog into a home, let alone asking someone to take on two large dogs that are too scared to be handled by people so we are open to letting them be adopted separately.”But if they don’t find a home together, then it is a necessity that there will be at least one other dog in the home to help them gain the confidence that they currently lack.”