A pet owner has opened up about the mental scars her rescue dog still carries following the traumatic events that led to her being saved.
For the past three years, Aino Korhonen and her boyfriend have called Bali in Indonesia home. “I was traveling around and felt like I wanted to settle somewhere warm and different from my home country,” Korhonen told Newsweek.
Having settled down in Southeast Asia, getting a dog seemed like a straightforward progression. However, Twinkie’s life has been anything but that. In a video posted to her TikTok, @ainoiknoww, Korhonen said how her dog gets “so sad and scared when she sees water” because she had been dumped in a river when they found her.
Bali has a significant stray dog problem. In 2019, the Disease Eradication and Environmental Health Division, which is the provincial health office of Bali, indicated the island was home to 500,000 wild dogs, with that number projected to increase by 3 percent annually.
Twinkie might so easily have ended up a part of that statistic were it not for a chance meeting in 2022 that not only changed her life but also might well have saved it.
“I found my dog Twinkie on the side of the road, next to a rice field two years ago when I was driving with my boyfriend,” Korhonen said. “Sadly, we often see abandoned dogs on the streets in Bali, but we ended up stopping for her as she was alone, sick and weak.”
When Korhonen took Twinkie to a vet, she was told the distressed pup was roughly 3 months old. She doesn’t know a whole lot about her life before that fateful day, but she suspects whatever preceded her rescue wasn’t good.
“I believe her life before was a pretty usual street-dog life in Bali, abandoned and not taken care of,” Korhonen said. “She had blood parasites, worms, fleas and bite marks all over her body. She was very skinny and very shy with people.”
Twinkie looks on next to a human hand. She has a strong aversion to water.
Even so, there are things about Twinkie that make Korhonen suspect she endured a difficult time at the hands of humans.
“To this day, she still doesn’t like some specific-looking locals e.g. rice field workers with hats, or drivers with helmets,” Korhonen said. “So I do believe she was mistreated by some.”
For the longest time, Twinkie’s biggest issues revolved around water, which is something Korkonen believes harks back to the situation they first found her in.
“I believe her fear of water stems from being abandoned in the water as she would never in her life go near the water by her choice,” Korhonen said. “She even used to be scared of the beach as she would see water and feel scared.”
Though things have improved since then, Twinkie still struggles with some scenarios.
“She’s better, but she still barks at the pool if the water is moving. She won’t go swimming and sometimes even avoids drinking from a water cup because she’s scared,” Korhonen said.
Despite these difficulties, it is clear Twinkie is happy, and so much of that is down to Korhonen. “Her favorite things to do are running, cuddling with me and playing with other dogs,” Korhonen said. “She’s a very happy dog and certainly loyal; she never leaves my side.”
Though Korhonen added that videos like the one she posted to TikTok make her feel sad for her beloved canine friend, she is also proud at the way she is steadily making progress. “She has overcome her fears a little,” Korhonen said. “For example, she crossed a small water path at the beach the other day.”
Korhonen knows it is a process and takes time. She just hopes those watching her videos of Twinkie “understand the importance of supporting rescue dogs with their fears and traumas.” She does, and it’s making so much of a difference to her canine companion.
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