TYSON
Doris (the founder of 2nd Chance Dogs) always loved dogs, however as a single mum, bringing up a child on your own has its challenges, longing to have a dog in her life again in 2007, Doris added a new member to her family, this was a little dog named Tyson.
Little did Doris know at the time, that Tyson was going to become the starting point in her dog rescue story.
“When working to make ends meet in today’s difficult way of life it is easy to become disconnected to things in life, some times we dont even see things that are in plain sight”. Tyson with his cheerful friendly character and calm temperament had become Doris’s best friend and by this, had awoken Doris to see the plight of abandoned and stray dogs in Cyprus.
Little Tyson became Doris’s shadow and Doris took Tyson everywhere with her. Not long after, Mario (her partner) came into Doris’s life, he too loved dogs. Mario did not have a dog since he was a teenager, becouse at that time he had lost his best friend, a German Shepard named “Spike” to illness, his grief and mourning was so intolarable that he did not want to go through such pain ever again. So he made the mistake of staying away from dogs all these years….
Then he met little Tyson. Well It wasn’t long until little Tyson did his magic and managed to help Mario remember what it was like to have unconditional love from a dog that loves you.
Doris and Mario became typical dog parents, and like all people that feel this unconditional love from their pet, they both started to have feelings of empathy and love to all dogs, Tyson had managed to wake up a feeling of Love they both felt towards all animals, a feeling that they had both suppressed for too long.
One day Doris saw an emaciated abandoned little GSD cross. He was starved and in bad shape, she had to help him. The dog however was timid and would not come near her, so after a few weeks of feeding him and gaining his trust, Doris and Mario managed to catch him, they fed him good quality food and after eating, well the poor dog was so tired that he slept for 20 hours straight, REX was officially the first dog they had rescued.
A feeling that they had helped a homeless, helpless being was so rewarding and all of this was because Tyson had woken up the third eye in them. Now everything was clear and they could see an abandoned dog in the middle of the night, they could hear a dog barking in the distance when before they heard nothing.
It wasn’t long before Tyson had 9 other dogs living with him, all of which were rescues, during those early days of rescue, Tyson played his role in helping the newly rescued dogs gain confidence, (which at the time all the rescues came to Doris’s home) Tyson’s character and confidence around other dogs helped them rehabilitate, trust humans again and rehoming was always a success because of this.
Fast forward to 2019 and around 1000 dogs have been rescued by Doris and later through her rescue organization 2nd Chance Dogs.
But there where so many more dogs to help, the pounds are never empty. So the idea was to have a centre to treat the rescue dogs just like we treat the dogs we have at home, to have a centre which dogs can enter broken mentally and physically, and to be able to be rehabilitate through time, giving them space to feel safe, protected from the elements such as the winter cold and the summer heat, to be given a space that would be peaceful and safe enough, so that they can sleep for 16 hours a day without stress, good food to eat, having ample space for exercise, enrichment activities, to enjoy companionship and time with other dogs and humans, to be able to behave and do what dogs do in their natural environment. Just like what Doris was doing at home but on a larger scale.
Through circumstance, hard work and allot of effort In December of 2015 work for centre of 2nd Chance dogs had commenced. It has been a rough and difficult journey, but Tyson was part of every single moment in this journey. Tyson helped many a timid dog gain confidence, when we needed a confident, non-reactive dog to assist another dog that was very poor at socialising Tyson was the dog that helped.
Tyson would be always be seen on the front seat of Doris’s car with Doris doing vet runs, he would come along to events, he loved being at Doris’s side. When taking dogs to the airport he would be with his mum at 3am during the late night airport runs keeping Doris company.
The path in this journey had started by loving one very special dog, Tyson was the reason that Doris and Mario become sensitive to the plight of abandoned and abused dogs in Cyprus.
Tyson had been with us through the good times and the tough times.
Unfortunately, Tyson is no longer with us. In October 2019 he crossed over the rainbow bridge, his long term battle with epilepsy and the drugs used to combat epilepsy caused his liver to fail.
He is missed dearly by all of us.
We pledge that in TYSONS honour we will carry on and work hard to achieve our mission.
Run free little Tyson xxx
Its because of Tyson that we are working hard to reach the day when all dogs in Cyprus are treated with compassion and respect, allowed to live without pain, suffering and the fear of euthanasia.
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