Warm Welcome to the Land of a Thousand Stray Dogs.

At a rescue facility in Costa Rica, these stray dogs have found solace roaming free across the tropical mountain land.

 José,  a volunteer from Nicaragua, and Darlin, a senior caretaker also from  Nicaragua, supervise the dogs during their daily walk. 

 At the Territorio de Zaguates  no-kill dog shelter in Costa Rica, every animal coming to live at the  rescue facility gets a name. And at the moment, there are approximately  970 dogs living here. 

 British photographer Dan Giannopoulos  recently spent time with the dogs and the people who take care of them  at this notable rescue facility, which translates to “Land of the  Strays.” 

 Located about an hour from  downtown San José, the shelter is famed for its approximately 378 acres  of tropical mountain land where scores of canines stroll, frolic, and  race alongside human visitors, shelter employees, and volunteers. The  vast majority of the animals are up for adoption and visitors can bring  their own dogs to play with the rescues. 

 

“To look out and see hundreds of dogs running across the field was  completely breathtaking to me. I’ve never seen anything like it,” says  Giannopoulos, a self-proclaimed dog lover currently based in Nicaragua.

Giannopoulos, who has spent the last few years shooting alternative  cultures in the UK, thought it might be difficult to photograph a story  about dogs instead of people, but says they were all friendly, curious,  and well-behaved. A labrador with a paralyzed leg stuck by Giannopoulos  for an entire day, waiting for him if he dropped behind the group to  take pictures. When it was time for him to leave, she followed him all  the way to the gate and watched him get into a taxi. “There are a lot of  dogs there that you can fall in love with,” Giannopoulos says so.

 Founders Lya Battle and  her husband Alvaro Saumet began taking in strays from the streets of San  José about 13 years ago. When the number of dogs in the couple’s small  backyard topped 100, they began the process of moving their unofficial  shelter to the farm owned by Battle’s grandfather. 

 Running the facility has  not been without its challenges. They are nearing the end of an arduous  process to become an official nonprofit organization in Costa Rica. They  also face the daunting reality of what it takes to feed the  ever-increasing number of animals—the cost of the 13 66-pound bags the  dogs consume a day comes to around $600. And, after 11 dogs were found  dead a short time ago, Battle worries neighbors who have been trying to  buy the land from her family are resorting to sordid tactics to destroy  her organization. 

 But for the dogs,  Territoire de Zaguates is a haven from past lives of abandonment and  neglect. One image shows José, a full-time employee of the shelter,  resting his arms on the back of a dog that is standing on his lap. A  mountain ridge with rainclouds above is behind José and he’s sitting in a  green field covered in dogs with fur in hues of brown, black, and  white. “This sums up the place for me,” says Giannopoulos.