“Wherever you go, I will always follow.”

I live on Fifth Avenue with my owner. The city center’s bustle doesn’t really affect me, because no matter how chaotic it gets, I always have my owner right next to me.

In her protection I can sleep well, fetch food whenever I am hungry, and take breaks and stretch myself. My name is JJ by the way. I am a five-year old Pitbull from Florida.

My owner Colleen is 23 and she is from Rhode Island. She has short blond hair that always looks cool on her. In fact, she is probably the most beautiful girl I’ve ever met. With 20 bucks, Colleen rescued me from a drug dealer when I was only 4 monthsold. I was skinny and sick back then,  with a few broken ribs.

Thanks to Colleen’s utmost care, I was back on my feet again, and grew up to become a strong dog.After that, Colleen and I traveled across the country in each other’s company. I would always alert her if someone was approaching us with bad intention, or find ourselves in other kinds of danger. I felt really proud the moment I realized I was able to protect Colleen as well!

Even though I appear to be “cool”, I can also do silly things like a little kid. Once I stepped on the poop I just had and walked directly over Colleen’s things. It annoyed her. The result, well as you can guess, is punishment. However, this doesn’t change the fact that I love living this content, happy and unpredictable life with her.

Three years ago Colleen met a boy about her age, who also shares similar backgrounds and life experiences with her. Not surprisingly, they became a couple. I was thrilled because it means that Colleen has another person protecting her, while I also have a new playmate.

Yes, Colleen is homeless. Out of the 500 thousands homeless people in the United States, one third of them are like colleen, in the warm accompany of their dogs. Life out on the street is difficult. Besides the constant need for a shelter, we were also attacked often by people who say “send your dog away, you can’t even feed yourself” or cruder, “People like you don’t deserve a dog. You’re abusing the animal.” Unfortunately, they don’t know that homeless people with dogs are not allowed in homeless shelter; even worse, in the pond of New York City, dogs will be euthanized if they are not claimed within a week.

However, Colleen never gave up on me even during the toughest days. She refused to move into a shelter because of me. No matter how other people think of her, for me Colleen is always a warm-hearted girl who yanked me back from the brink of death.

Colleen doesn’t receive much money from panhandling every day, but she makes sure we never miss a meal. Nonetheless, once in a while some nice people come by and offer me snacks.

Colleen is the meaning of my life. I’m her dog as well as her emotional support, and my home is where she is.

I just want to say to Colleen: Wherever you go, I will always follow. As long as you never give up on me, I will always be the happiest dog in the world.

“Being homeless renewed my faith in humanity.”

A few weeks ago, when my friend and I were volunteering at the Collide helping pets of the homeless, I met Ryan for the first time. Different from other homeless I would expect, he dressed neat and clean and spoke politely. Ryan’s dog scratched my neck when I was playing with him, he said sorry right after and from his eyes, I knew he really meant it.

Ryan’s dog is named Kyle, a three year old black Labrador mix. Kyle looks big but actually is still relatively young. He makes bigloud noises when he drinks, and keeps pushing the bowl after meals to attract attention. He thinks this can help him get more food.

Ryan, 35, came from Pennsylvania. He got married when he was 25 but the marriage only lasted three to four years. After the divorce, his ex-wife took custody of their son and their house. This flipped Ryan’s life upside down.

He had depression since he was little and the divorce made it even worse. From then on, he started wandering as a homeless person in different cities.

Over the past few years, Ryan had no connection with his family at all. Being homeless and traveling all by himself was really rough. Three years ago, when Ryan came to upstate New York, his friend’s dog just had new born pups and Ryan adopted one of them–Kyle. At that time, Kyle was only three weeks old and could barely open his eyes. Ryan loved the dog at the first sight and named him Kyle, the same name of his son whom Ryan hasn’t met for years.

From then on Kyle became Ryan’s best accompanion and they have never been apart. Kyle would guard Ryan at night. When some strangers got close, Kyle would make deep noise. If the strangers ignored it and tried to steal something, Kyle would start to attack them.

Affected by depression for so many years, it is hard for Ryan to open himself up to others. Being homeless led him to close himself off to the world. But Kyle changed his life completely and became his bridge/connection to the outside. Because Kyle is very friendly to people, a lot of passersby will stop and talk with Ryan when he was panhandling on the street.

“He has taught me the meaning of love.”

“When we lived in Virginia, one day, I was swimming in the river. Super Max thought I was drowning. He jumped into the water and started pulling me out of the water to save me. I thought it was really funny”, said Conner.

Super Max, the hero who “saved” him, is a big yellow Labrador mix. Conner was patting Super Max with affection while he was telling us the story.

Conner, 21, became homeless when he was 12 years old. The tough experiences struggling on the street make him appear a little older than his actual age. When he smiles, you will know that he is still a big boy, a bit shy, yet very polite.

Conner didn’t say too much about why he ended up on the street. He told us he had been drifting around the country and arrived in the Big Apple not long ago, the city he likes the most.

Four years ago, when Conner was in Santa Cruz, the dog owned by his then-girlfriend got pregnant. Conner assisted with the delivery. There were puppies popping out of their mother one after another. One puppy has a cute black face and black paws. Conner fell in love with him on the first sight and decided to keep him. Because the puppy was bigger than the rest of them, Conner named him Super Max.

“My dog is the light at the end of the dark tunnel.”

I met with Duffy and Bella at an organization that rescues homeless people and homeless dogs in the Lower East Side. Duffy was selecting a winter coat for his dog Bella. This big guy put all kinds of clothes on Bella to find the best fit. He carefully adjusted Bella’s harness. His eyes are soft and tender.

Bella is an 11-month-old Pitbull mix. She is active and curious of the world. Duffy got her a red coat. When dressed red, Bella’s hair looked shiny. Happy Bella started to chew a bone.

Duffy was born and raised in Brooklyn, a neighborhood with drug addicts and gangs. Like his father and uncles, Duffy started to use drugs at an early age. When he was 16, his father died of drug abuse. In his 20s, Duffy went to prison for robbery. During the next 10 years, he has been to jail couple of times for other cases, during which his mother passed away. He was also not there to witness the birth and growing-up of his son.

Duffy has quit his drug habit. However, his son’s mother refused to let him see his son because she thought he would be a “bad influence” on her child. For Duffy, there is no place in New York City that can be called “home” anymore.Duffy tried to stay in the shelter, but it was ugly there. Gangsters and bullies stole money out of Duffy’s pocket, and bathrooms were full of human waste. The shelter was not a place for sheltering–to Duffy it was similar to the notorious Riker’s prison. He left that place.

“Stay positive, otherwise you’ll never be able to walk out of it.”

It is on 6th avenue in midtown New York City. People often see a little Yorkshire in front of the crowded Gap store. If sitting quietly is the    stereotype of dogs with homeless owners, this Yorkshire would be very alternative. She is particularly active, with her curious eyes latching on everything on the street.

Her name is Dutchess, a 7-year-old who has called the street home for three years now with her owner Jon and his wife. Jon and his wife once ran a dog-walking company in upstate New York, where they provided board for pets sometimes as part of their business. Dutchess arrived when she was 8 months old. Her owner at the time promised to pick her up after Thanksgiving, but never appeared again. Therefore, Dutchess was abandoned and Jon and his wife decided to keep her since.

However, soon came the financial crisis. Jon’s dog walking business shrank and finally went bankrupt in 2012. Not able to pay rent, the couple was evicted by their landlord—they had helped many homeless dogs before, yet it was their turn to be homeless.

Jon and his wife tried to find shelter but soon realized none in New York City would allow pets with their owners. In other words, to stay in a shelter the couple had to abandon Dutchess. The couple considered Dutchess their real daughter and they chose to live on the street with her, believing that everything will be fine in the end.

“I don’t know how long I can live, all I can do is to keep my head up.”

   Once while walking around Columbus Circle I met a man named Allen and his pet Pitbull named Nitro. Although this area is one of the wealthiest and exclusive on the Island of Manhattan, Allen was homeless and slept on the sidewalk in front of Lincoln Center.

    Allen is a Thirty Six year old Veteran, who served in the United States Marine Corps. During his time in the Marines, Allen served as a member of the Military Police and then as part of the Bomb-squad unit once he was deployed to Iraq. However Allen’s life changed on one fateful day.

   One day while on a mission, Allen and his team fell victim to an IED attack. As a result, nineteen soldiers and four service dogs were killed. Allen however was one of the survivors. Although he was lucky to be alive, Allen didn’t escape death unharmed. Allen underwent many surgical procedures to remove shrapnel that was embedded deep within his body and need to have his bones screwed back together like a door that had been knocked off of it’s hinges. But the most life changing injury Allen had sustained as a result of this tragic day, was he is now missing a portion of the frontal lobe on the right side of the brain.

should we help homeless and their dogs?

Homelessness is a shared experience in New York City — either you have been homeless, know someone who has been homeless, or have shared the sidewalk or a subway car with someone who is homeless. In a city of 8.5 million people, more than 59,000 homeless people sleep in shelters and at least 3,300 more sleep on the streets and subways every night, many of whom have pets.

It’s quite common for people to judge homeless people unworthy of animal companionship and doubt their ability to take good care of dogs. However, for many homeless, the only emotional support, stability, and unconditional love they receive comes from the loyal pets that stay close to them throughout their hardship.

Do homeless people “deserve” to have dogs?

To find the answer, my friends and I went out on the street to conduct interviews with many homeless people who own dogs. Although they became homeless for various reasons, the one common thread we discovered was that they all strived to keep their dog’s companionship no matter what else happened in their lives.

“My dog always eats first”, was the most frequent thing we heard during interviews.

Among whom were couples who wished to be always on the road, veterans who suffered from mental disorders after they came back from Afghanistan, orphans who were discarded in childhood, mistreated in the orphanage and escaped, and couples who failed in business, were kicked out of their houses by their landlords, but unwilling to give up. Although they became homeless for various reasons, they all kept their dog’s company no matter what happened to them. When speaking with these people, I noticed a sense of satisfaction and ease in all their dogs, though they might have no warm home to live in and not enough food to eat.

What we learned from the homeless people who own dogs in our interviews is that no matter how hard are their lives on street, the wellbeing of their dog is always the number one priority. While many passers-by see a person and a dog living together on a city street, what often goes unrealized is that these animals are the “significant others” for an incredibly marginalized group of people. The relationship formed between the two is often enough to keep the other going forward, one day at a time.

To learn more about stories of dogs of New York City’s Homeless and how to help out , click here.