When Louise Hastie was posted to Iraq for her first tour with the Territorial Army, she thought she was prepared. They’d trained her to use a gun and shoot at targets, they’d warned her to say goodbye to her family and write letters to the people she loved in case she didn’t come home.

But nothing could have prepared Louise for the horror of war. It was January 2004,
and in her logistics role Louise had never felt fear quite like it. Bullets whizzed past the army base at all times of the day, leaving her shaking, and the ground shuddered when bombs were detonated.

"Those first few days were terrifying,’ says Louise. "But one thing that really struck me, that I hadn’t even thought about when I’d received my sign-up sheets, were the animals – the innocent victims caught in the crossfire."

Even without the battles, the lifespan of a stray dog or cat born in a desert country like Iraq was short. It can hit 40˚C in the summer and -20˚C in the winter. The ground freezes, and there’s no chance of finding food unless they scavenge trash. With war ravaging their turf, their lives were made even more unbearable. Louise witnessed awful human suffering, but while there were charities delivering aid to the people of Afghanistan, the dogs and cats were often left to fend for themselves.

As Louise and her troops travelled between different bases, she witnessed dozens of pitiful animals on the roadside. Some were dead, and some had been hit by armoured vehicles, so were pulling themselves around with broken bones and mangled limbs. Sadly, rabies was also rife.

"Having grown up with pets, I’d always been an animal lover. When I was 15, I’d witnessed a pet shop owner put two live mice into a snake’s cage. I marched over, bought the mice and reported him to the council," Louise says. "So seeing the pain these creatures lived in was heartbreaking. I couldn’t stand by and do nothing."

Back in England with her pack of rescue dogs

The locals saw stray cats and dogs as a nuisance and poisoned them, but the poison they used paralysed the respiratory system, leaving them to die a slow, cruel death.

"It sounds bad and it was, but despite all of that, there was something magical about Iraq. The people were lovely, the landscape beautiful. So when my six-month tour was over, I decided to apply for a job in a private security company so I could stay. I lived on a US military base, but as a civilian," Louise explains.

"Everyone said I was mad and I’d never make a difference. I wanted to close my eyes to their pain, physically and metaphorically, but I couldn’t, especially when one of our cleaners brought me a half-dead kitten. My boss told me I had to get rid of it, but I couldn’t. Instead, I nursed the poor creature back to health, and called him Simba Al-tiqriti."

Louise went to great lengths to keep Simba secret until she moved to a new camp in November 2005, when her boss pulled her to one side and said she had to let the cat go. Louise knew he was right. But she couldn’t bear the idea of throwing Simba out on the streets and knew he’d never survive if she did. So she hatched an elaborate plan: one of the cleaners would take various taxi journeys to smuggle
him over the border to Kuwait, to have him treated and eventually flown to Louise’s parents in the West Midlands.

It was breaking all kinds of international laws and placing Louise and the cleaner at incredible risk, but she couldn’t see any other option and was willing to do whatever it took to keep Simba safe. Although loads of things went wrong, a friend eventually got hold of Simba and he made it safely to the UK.

"After that, word got out that some crazy woman was prepared to risk everything for animals and people started emailing, asking me to help. How could I refuse?" Louise says.

So she came up with more and more wild schemes to save cats and dogs from certain death. The American armed forces used to let me send medication and food packages to the frontline in their tanks – then they’d send back photos of happy, healthy animals our packages helped. I organised for three cats from Iraq, Doodle, Phoenix and Pudding, and two dogs, Zeus and Gabriel, to come back to the UK and live with my parents until I could join them," Louise says.

In December 2009, she moved to another security company, this time in Afghanistan. When Louise’s mum read about a local Afghan dog shelter, Louise got in touch and offered to help. Soon, she was working 20 hours a day, between her job and volunteering there.

Louise couldn’t keep going like that forever, so in May 2010 she quit her job to focus on the shelter. They couldn’t afford to pay her at first, so Louise lived on her savings for six months.

"It was hard work, but incredibly rewarding," Louise says. ‘I was getting to help cats and dogs all day, every day, and we were slowly making a big difference."

Eventually, a suitable plot of land was found and Louise and the team built a big new shelter. It was fairly basic, and because Louise wasn’t trained as a vet
all she could do was vaccinate, de-worm and de-flea the animals, as well as feed them and offer them companionship and cuddles like they’d never known before.

"When an international animal charity heard about us, they got in touch and gradually they trained a local man as a vet to treat the dogs and cats properly. Slowly, we became big enough to employ a cleaner and another vet, and house around 100 dogs," Louise explains.

In October 2015, Louise decided to return to the UK because she was so exhausted. During her tenure, the Afghan sanctuary saved hundreds of animals and helped improve the way locals treated both strays and pets.

Back in the UK

"Although I was leaving Afghanistan, I wasn’t going alone. I took with me five more dogs – Robo, Joe, Bell, Holly and Foxy – and four cats – Pookie, Baron, Zabba and Shariq. It was a hell of a mission getting them home and cost £16,000, which I fundraised thanks to the incredible generosity of friends and strangers here in the UK, but I’d promised them all I’d keep them safe and I was never going to break that promise," Louise says.

"We all now live together with my Iraq pack too. I’d never wanted children – I’d seen war, it’s not much of a world to bring little ones into – so these animals are the closest things to me."

Back in the UK, Louise is still helping animals by working full-time as a yard manager for a dog rescue centre in the West Midlands. She’s also a trustee for War Paws, a charity based in Iraq, which raises money to neuter the stray population, feed them and tend to their wounds.

With Dai Matthews, the chairman of charity War Paws

"We are in talks with the Iraqi government about the importance of population control and rabies medication, but it’s a long process," Louise says. "We won’t give up."

Louise also organises the exit arrangements for any dogs who are being adopted by families in the UK and US. It’s a complicated, expensive procedure, but there are lots of people like Louise out there who just have to rescue these pups.

"I may not be changing the world, but I’m glad to be giving these wonderful animals a safe, happy and healthy life," Louise says. "I’ve seen dogs that have been beaten up, starved and shot at, yet are so gentle and loving – they long for happy homes, and it’s my mission to help find them a place to belong and be loved."

Helping hounds

Some of the stray dogs Louise and the War Paws charity have saved over the years.

To help send life-saving aid parcels to animals across the world, visit worldwide veterinary service at Wvs.org.uk or more on War dogs, go to Warpaws.org.