Pocker’s “mom” is Katarzyna Pisarska, a journalist, a writer and, first of all, a friend of all animals in need. She helps homeless dogs and other animals not only in Poland, but also in other places around the world. ‘"Adopt! don't spend money for love" is the slogan that the mascot promotes in all places where it arrives. I bought Pocker in a secondhand clothes shop for 4 PLN. And that’s the only cost of this campaign. The toy dog travels to all continents, because the problem of homelessness is a global one,’ says Katarzyna.
The campaign started three years ago. At the beginning, Pocker went to the USA on the knees of film director Paweł Karpiński. And then things went ahead for good: Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Greece, UK, USA, Australia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Germany, Turkey, Tanzania, Palma di Majorca, Brasil, Orlando, Zanzibar, Sri Lanka, Gambia, Senegal, Maldives, Malaysia, Thailand, Israel, Warsaw, Łódź, Olsztyn, Tri-City, Katowice, Bielsko Biała, Kraków, Rzeszów, Paris, Venezia. Always on the road: more than 290,000 km travelled within less than three years of the campaign.
The rules of the campaign are simple. You can take Pocker home for not shorter than 24 hours and for no longer than 10 days. You can take it to your workplace, to a restaurant, wedding or dinner, exercise or travel with it – anything that you want! Later you must upload a photo story of mutual adventures on Pocker’s fan page. ‘The dog is passed along from one person to another; we do not send it by mail or courier, and it travels with us, not in a suitcase. We take care of it as if it were a real dog. Every day you must take at least one photo (fan page) and tell at least one person to adopt animals instead of buying them,’ adds Katarzyna Pisarska. The route covered by Pocker is quite large – it visited the Polish Parliament, fed elephants in an orphanage (Pinnawala), visited a tea plantation in Ceylon, was a guest of schools and kindergartens, played the piano in Radio Kraków and flew in a cockpit. During three years, he “experienced” many wonderful adventures and “met” fantastic people. ‘A Polish woman living in Italy and her Italian partner took care of the dog for a short time. The whole campaign moved them so much that, having passed the mascot along, they went to a dog shelter in Albania to adopt a small homeless dog. And they called it Pocker’, smiles Kasia. The news about the Polish social campaign has reached the world media – articles about Pocker have been published, among others, in Israel, USA, Australia or UK.
