Nobody knows how Dasha got into the hands of a circus trainer since she was a cub. Most likely her mother was poached, hunted for sport… Common things in Ukraine, her native country. Along with Dasha, her sister, Katia, also arrived in the trainers’ hand. They were both thrown into thick cages and … the ordeal began. Because of her fear of whipping and starvation or the electric shock device, Dasha learned to walk on the beam, on the ball, on the front paws, on the circle… When she was not on stage she was thrown into her small, miserable cage and walked to other circuses, to other spectators.
In October 2019, she was rescued from the nightmare beyond the bright curtain. She was reborn in the Libearty Sanctuary, where she also met her sister. Although they were colleagues of suffering, for 24 years they never touched, being kept in separate cages.
