26 Dec This Branch Of Ikea Is Letting Local Stray Dogs Warm Up Inside Over Christmas

For the latest Bold Beasts blog, we thought we would share a story of great compassion towards animals.

Most of you will be familiar with IKEA and what they do – they sell affordable furniture that you assemble at home. Although IKEA is a Swedish company, they have branches all over the world, including in Italy, where one branch has decided to let the local stray dogs in to keep warm at this cold time of year.

The store is located in Catania,  a port city on the east coast of Sicily. They have a lot of stray dogs in the area surrounding the store, and they decided to help the poor animals out in the best way they could.

They have invited the local strays in to the store, and given them access to all the comfy cushions, rugs, and comfy surfaces that IKEA’s display models have to offer. They also give them food and water, so that all their immediate needs are taken care of.

As you can probably tell from the pictures, some of the dogs are quite old, so it makes such a positive difference in their lives to be able to come in from the cold. The customers absolutely love meeting the dogs, too.

In fact, a few of the dogs have even ended up being permanently adopted by customers who went to IKEA for some new furniture, and ended up coming back home with a new best friend.

It’s so great that the store thought to do this. While I’m sure a lot of store managers would probably get their back up about ‘health and safety’ concerns, this store decided to go with their hearts and help out these sweet animals in their time of need.

Of course, we hope that all of these dogs end up finding their forever homes eventually. For the time being, there are far worse places for a dog to be than in this store. They’re getting the food and shelter that they need to survive, as well as the love and attention of visiting customers. It really is a Christmas miracle.

From everyone at Bold Beasts, we’d like to give a huge amount of love and respect to the staff at IKEA Catania. We hope that other stores follow your example.