Visiting Street Dogs at BARC in Ubud

After volunteering my time to look after dogs at Care for Dogs in Chiang Mai, I was lucky enough to visit another centre this time BARC in Ubud, Bali.

Bali Dog Adoption and Rehabilitation Centre (BARC) helps care for the sick, injured and abused street dogs in Bali.

As I only visited the centre 3 times and briefly visited the market stand I can’t tell you much. What I can tell you is that this shelter is much smaller than Care for Dogs and houses around 80 dogs, with more in foster homes and clinics in different parts of Ubud, but differs in that it helps dogs on the whole island, bear in mind that this is a large island. We saw them at the main site in Ubud although we did see a charity shop in Sanur, and even went to a small day market there and met a few more of their happy pups too.

I was quite popular

Of course the money here also goes toward vaccinations, sterilisations and general vet care for the animals. But not only that, the shelter is currently in desperate need of money to move to a new site to increase the size of their shelter, with so many dogs already at risk of being put down due to the high amount of rabid cases, the government have actioned that any dog on the street will be put down, and the shelter is struggling to house them, its a very sad story.

If this wasn’t bad enough, the locations they do have are subject to noise complaints and so are facing eviction – it’s quite sickening that people would have a charity evicted because they didn’t like some dogs barking, but that’s how it is in Bali – dogs are not particularly welcomed by most locals.

When we visited the shelter on first impressions the shop front is very well manicured and kept, as you follow the door out on your left and go down the steps, then through the gate it seems slightly dilapidated. I heard that recently they had to undergo a change and this was only a temporary housing until they could move on.

Who couldn’t love this beautiful girl?

What i noticed straight away was that the dogs here are much younger than at Care for Dogs, many under 6 months, and are still puppies. The older dogs are few and far between, most have horrific damage to their legs, eyes or have behaviour issues, some have just 2 legs left, some paralysed below the waist, others are completely blind, and some just are too independent and not used to nice people.

This lovely fella didn’t have any back legs but still moved around at surprising speed and loved being the centre of attention!

I played with many of the dogs for an hour or so, I even managed a trip out by myself when Greg wasn’t feeling up to it. They all need socialising to help them with getting new homes and I hope I did that for them.

Look out for this sign when you’re in Ubud and help them out!

As I previously mentioned, they are desperately in need of donations and every penny counts, if you wish to donate please click here.