A solo trip to Ukraine to save disabled dogs
CT woman spent 2 months on rescue trip
About two weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, Emily Franco flew to Europe with a mission: save as many disabled dogs in the war-torn country as she could.
Franco said that during the next two months, she drove a car and a trailer — which she bought with her own money — from Poland into Ukraine and back with dogs in tow.
“I felt it in my gut just a call to come here,” Franco, 27, said from a hotel in Poland earlier this month.
Franco, a Monroe resident who previously lived in Stamford, said she had plenty of experience caring for dogs before going to Ukraine, from fostering to boarding to walking. The Scotland native moved to the United States in 2017.
She previously worked with Special Needs Animal Rescue and Rehabilitation Northeast, a nonprofit that looks to rescue “the animals that nobody else wants; the dogs that would otherwise be euthanized,” according to its website.
Courtney Bellew, the founder of SNARR Northeast, said Franco “has been dedicated to helping animals for many years” and “can always be counted on to take in … dogs needing extra love in their final days.
“The crisis happening in the Ukraine is unimaginable, and it doesn’t surprise me one bit that Emily made her way there to help the people and the animals,” Bellew said in a statement.
While she was overseas, Franco said she would find out about disabled dogs that had been abandoned in Ukraine through a local Facebook group. Because of checkpoints, she said it would take her about 18 hours to drive to east Ukraine, where she saw destruction from the war first hand.
After finding a dog, she said she would stay in Ukraine overnight, sleeping in a church or her car. She would then return to Poland and look for a shelter or rescue group to take in the animal. She said she saved about 40 dogs in all.
“I only rescue disabled dogs,” Franco said. “Many organizations do not — and if they do, it’s like one out of 100.”
At the time she spoke to The Stamford Advocate, Franco was caring for a dog she had rescued from Kharkiv. The dog, an Anatolian shepherd named Topaz, had been shot. Topaz was later brought to a shelter in Romania, where it was determined that he should be euthanized.
Franco said she planned to return to the United States soon because she had no money left to keep rescuing dogs: she said she lost some of her money to scams, plus, the car she drove into Ukraine was damaged during one of her trips.
She and her husband, Christopher Franco, have four senior cats and three dogs, two of which have special needs, at their home in Monroe.
“Emily has a very unique heart that guides her and drives her to really empathize with abandoned animals, those ignored or even people look at as just ghosts — they don’t even see them,” Christopher Franco said.
Among the organizations contributing to efforts to help animals in Ukraine is Humane Society International said Annie Hornish, the Humane Society of the United States’ director for Connecticut. HSI notes on its website that it is supplying financial aid to UAnimals, an animal protection group in Ukraine, and is working on the ground in nearby countries to help refugees who have fled with their pets.