Charity Photo Shoot for the Street Dogs of Sitia.

Our local dog charity is in a bit of a state, they have been working tirelessly for the last 15 years to make sure that abandoned dogs in Sitia have a place to go where they can get food, water, shelter and if they are sick a place where they can get better.

Over time there have been many active members of the group, however currently there are just five devoted individuals who between them make sure that these dogs are looked after.

This is a huge task and given the extremely limited resources that they have, one which they have risen to with enormous rigour and enthusiasm.

The sad truth is that as times get harder in Greece more and more dogs are being abandoned on the streets. The charity is regularly called to pick up an animal from a bin or a box of day old puppies. Sadly, given the physical climate and limited financial resources available not all of these animals make it.

The upside is that despite the fact that not all of them make it through, some of them do. The charity is desperate to find all these dogs homes. Not all of them are puppies, some are grown dogs, some are special needs cases missing a leg or paw. The thing about all of them is that they have a ton of love to give. The second that you walk up to the make shift area in which they are kept you are greeted with wagging tails and licks and kisses from just about all of them.

Each dog has its own tale to tell.

The charity is in desperate need of all the help that they can get. They need funs because they also need a plot of land where they can keep all these animals, they need kennels so that the dogs can rest out of the intense Greek sun, they need food donations and they need medical supplies, they need vets to come by and check over the animals and they need volunteers who - if nothing else - spend a little bit of time with the dogs and socialize them so that when homes are found the dogs are prepared for life back outside of the protection of the charity in the big bad world.

I was asked by a friend who works with the charity to come up and take pictures of the dogs they have at the moment. It is our hope that the pictures will help publicise the fate of these animals and help secure them a loving home with real people and a bed of their own.

The charity is in the middle of putting together a web site where you will be able to see all these animals, it will tell their stories and offer a place where you will be able to make donations to the charity and a way of finding out about adoption.

At the end of the day all these guys need is a little bit of TLC.