"She likes biting," said Vasyl Velychko, using his remaining hand to fend off an excited German shepherd called Ira at a dog shelter in Lviv, western Ukraine.
Velychko is one of tens of thousands of Ukrainians who have had amputations as a result of injuries suffered during Russia's war on their country.
Ira is just one of up to 60 dogs that Velychko feeds and walks every day at the Lviv Animal Shelter. The dogs have become his therapy.
"I saw an advertisement. I thought, I'll come, I'll try to work," he toldRFE/RL's Ukrainian Service.
Velychko served in the Ukrainian military from 2017-2020 but rejoined after Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022. A few months later, during a Ukrainian counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region, a shot from an anti-tank grenade launcher tore off his arm.
