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China animal rescuer shares home with over 1,300 dogs
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Twenty years ago, Wen Junhong saved an abandoned dog from the streets of Chongqing in southwestern China. She now shares her home with more than 1,300 of them, and they keep on coming.
After taking in that first dog, a Pekinese she named Wenjing 鈥 鈥済entle and quiet鈥 in Chinese 鈥 Wen found she couldn鈥檛 stop.
She says she was driven by worries about what strays face on the streets, such as accidents.
鈥淚t鈥檚 important to look after these dogs,鈥 she said. 鈥淓ach of us should respect life, and the Earth is not only for humans but for all animals.鈥
Urban strays are rarely sterilized, placing more pressure on overwhelmed and underfunded animal rescue centers.
As well as the abandoned pets and strays that are regularly left in her front yard, Wen says she receives calls 鈥渆very day to help more dogs.鈥
And it鈥檚 not just canines that the 68-year-old has a soft spot for.
She also lives with 100 cats, four horses and a scattering of rabbits and birds.
鈥淪ome people say I鈥檓 a psychopath,鈥 she admits.
Mucking out
Her day starts at 4am with the unenviable task of clearing 20-30 barrels of overnight dog waste and cooking more than 500 kilograms of rice, meat and vegetables for the animals.
The waste gets burned in the back yard. A handful of dogs run free around the building, while a tethered pitbull terrier at the back door growls and barks at strangers.
Every room in the two-story house is full of cages, piled next to and on top of each other.
Surrounded by fences and locked gates, her hillside location is the latest in a series of homes after complaints from neighbors forced her and her charges to keep moving.
Wen finances the operation with proceeds from selling her apartment, loans of up to 60,000 yuan (US$9,174) and her pension and life savings from an earlier career as an environmental technician.
She also receives donations after gaining attention on social media, where she has been dubbed 鈥淐hongqing Auntie Wen.鈥
Wen hopes the attention will lead to adoptions, but new arrivals far outpace those being rehomed.
And she has suffered abuse online, after pictures of the animals鈥 living conditions were posted.
鈥淟iving in such a small cage is no better than being a stray dog,鈥 wrote one critic on social media.
Large dogs are kept outside, and small ones in cages indoors.
鈥淚f all the dogs are released, they will fight,鈥 Wen said.
Some attempt to gnaw through the bars while others yap relentlessly and scrap with each other.
One mutt snapped at anyone walking past until Wen covered its cage with a coat.
She has six staff, who sleep in a room piled high with bags of dog food.
One, Yang Yiqun, shows arms and hands covered with scars and scratches.
鈥淚 like the dogs even if they bite me,鈥 says the Sichuan local who has worked with Wen for five years. 鈥淪he is under too much pressure to handle it alone.鈥
Even with her love of animals and a team to help her, Wen admits rehoming strays is a struggle.
鈥淚t鈥檚 really very hard,鈥 she laments. 鈥淭here are more and more dogs and each of them gets less space.鈥
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