Photographer gave up her career to live with a hundred sick dogs in the woods

Sometimes in order to find yourself, you have to lose yourself first. Daria Pushkareva had a successful career in Moscow, but her workaholic lifestyle made her feel miserable. But all that changed when the girl dedicated her time and money to animals in need.

«I was one of the five most popular Moscow wedding photographers,» Daria said. — Among my clients were mostly businessmen and politicians. Before photography I had been shooting cinema and TV series for six years, which I was also proud of. But that work of 15 hours a shift with no days off for two weeks straight was draining me. To lighten the load, I took up photography. I spent all my money on a camera and workshops. But it ended the same way. days off, no holidays.»

«Then I remembered that in high school, when we were discussing what we wanted to be, I said I wanted to run a dog shelter. I grew up without a father, my mother worked a lot, so I didn’t have a dog — it would have been an extra burden for my mother in the first place.»

«It was a long time before I got my first dog. When I was doing film, I helped animals a lot, donated money, volunteered.»

«One day I saw a post about a puppy in a shelter who was missing one eye. I met a volunteer to give her the money, and she told me: «Thank you, but we can’t take her to the clinic. There’s no one to do it right now.» And I was there with my husband. We exchanged glances, and I said: «We can do it ourselves.» Then it was plain and simple. The shelter owner handed me a fluffy flea-bitten lump, and I asked: «Is it a puppy?»

Soon the couple began rescuing one dog after another. «My husband and I wanted a seventh dog. One that was in such terrible condition that no one would take it. There were none in Moscow, but we found one in Krasnodar. When I saw her in the online catalog, I immediately felt her eyes looking right at me. We took the 7 month old puppy home, who immediately started biting our 6 dogs. The midnight fight wouldn’t end, so we took him to the trainer. But that didn’t help. The puppy howled, messed up the apartment and was even aggressive to us. It turned out he had a head injury that gave him migraines.»

«Then we took two loans and bought a country house 160 km from Moscow and moved there with the dogs. We built six cages for them and started living a whole new life. But I don’t consider our farm to be a shelter. I am even offended by this name. A shelter is a place where new volunteers and other people help animals that are constantly moving in and out. We have our own dogs, we love them, and we dedicate our lives to them. They are family to us. They will stay with us forever, we don’t want to give them up to anyone.»

«I finally feel like I’m not wasting my life, but spending time with meaning. I’m helping these animals and genuinely enjoying it. I know I can take care of them, and if giving them to others, I would worry if they were getting enough freedom, food and love.»

«Four years after moving in, we already have hot water and a toilet here — friends have helped us with all that. After all, we spend all our money on animals, and there’s never enough money for human comfort. But it doesn’t take much to be happy.»

«One day I met a volunteer who told me how she rescues foxes from a kennel. Before, I hadn’t even thought about it. And I wanted to save foxes, too. A month later I had three foxes.»

«Then I saw online that a raccoon without a paw was looking for a new home, and it touched me. I started reading all kinds of information about raccoons and fell in love with them. It’s a long story, but now we have seven raccoon brothers and their sister.»

«When we started building a separate place for them, we noticed their numbers started to grow — we now had a hundred animals. And we watched all of them ourselves.»

«Our typical day looks like this: we wake up at dawn, feed and walk the animals, treat whoever needs treatment, and so on into the evening. We clean up, serve food and water, and just hang out with them. I take a lot of pictures and videos for Instagram. I firmly believe that it’s important to teach good attitudes toward animals. Even sick ones can live happily. And foxes can be born, not just to be someone’s clothes.»

«Speaking of money, of course it’s hard. We have a total of about 200 animals to feed, and we feed them healthy, balanced food, including meat, fish, poultry. We also provide them with medicine, and pay the two people who help us on the farm. I find time to work as a freelancer, retouching photos. But we get a lot of help from friends. Some raise money for us, some donate. I’m very grateful to everyone! We don’t have sponsors, and I don’t expect to. We have chosen to do this for ourselves.