Exploring the Lives of Abandoned Dogs in Vietnam | How Dogs That Never Knew Love Survive

Out here in the Vietnamese countryside, I take in the dogs nobody else wants — the abandoned, the caged, the ones who never knew a single day of love. This is the story of one of them: Chip. Chip spent the first part of her life locked in a small cage in the city — a village dog with energy to burn and nowhere to run, sold online by owners who had no room for her. And a grown dog like that, put up for sale, usually has only one kind of buyer left waiting. So the day I saw the post, I made the trip in to bring her home instead. The ride back was probably the first time she'd ever been outside a cage in her life. This is her whole story: her first taste of running free, her first bath in the pond, her first real meals — and, one patient day at a time, the very first trick this dog was ever taught. Nobody had ever shown her a single thing before. Now she shakes hands. 🐾 She grew up right beside the golden girl I once saved from a slaughterhouse — two dogs who started with nothing, sharing one home. I'm still out there searching for my own lost dog, Rio, and every dog I save while I look is the reason I keep going. Chip already has her name. What she needs next is a new trick — so tell me in the comments, what should I teach her? I read every one. Thank you for being here. This is Rio's Farm.