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4.1.08
Happy New Year to everyone!
The first news of the year from Tg-Jiu is not so good but hopefully the
year that has just begun continues and ends in a happier way.
Before Christmas and on New Years’ Eve there were massive fireworks in
the city of Tg-Jiu. These fireworks caused a lot of panic at the
shelter as well as among Carmena and Patricia’s pets. The panic at
Carmena’s home had caused a lot of damage (some of the windows, doors
and fences broke) and the death of one of the therapy dogs, Kiki. Also
one of Carmena’s dogs climbed over a 2-meter-high fence and is still
missing. There are two dogs missing from the shelter, too.
When it comes to the personal life of Carmena (if you could even say
she has one), there is not much to be joyful about. Her only source of
income, the little boutique, has been closed down because she no longer
is able to run it successfully. Patricia doesn’t have any more time or
resources to help her mother with the boutique. Carmena is, of course,
terrified by the thought of someone else providing for her but at this
moment she is still hopeful that the things will turn out for better.
In the beginning of the week we managed to send a personal
post-Christmas present for Carmena in a form of a little money support.
Since Carmena’s situation was urgent, we didn’t have time to inform
about it properly. However, big thanks for those who managed to get a
little hint of what was going on and participated in the present.
Of course, Carmena has her pride and she is very embarrassed about this
situation. She almost didn’t accept our present. Luckily I managed to
talk her into it and told her that we would’ve sent the money in any
case even if we hadn’t heard one word of her personal hardships.
The winter in Tg-Jiu is already much further than here in Finland. It
has snowed and the water cups of the shelter freeze by nights so that
the mornings start off with breaking the ice and adding new water.
There has been other water problems too since the hoses and pipes
naturally freeze when it’s cold. Carmena told that during cold winters
the dogs eat twice as much as normally, they probably try to fight
against the coldness by gaining some extra pounds. Of course Carmena is
now worried if there is enough money to buy more food for the increased
need.
The about 30 dogs that
constantly live in the warehouse building of the shelter are difficult
to treat in a small and cramped space. The warehouse building is kept
warm with a radiator and several fan heaters but the power at the
shelter is still limited and the cables coming from outside are in
desperate need of change, they spark every now and then and cause short
circuits.
Even though a
Finnish electrician helped to improve the internal wirings of the
warehouse in August 2006, he was unable to touch the external cables
since they had quite a voltage. He barely managed to operate on the
extremely dangerous inner cables with the power on all the time; you
couldn’t cut off the power anywhere.
The power plant of Tg-Jiu is not very interested in fixing the
electricity of the shelter building since the work is either very
dangerous or the city government has ordered them not to fix the
wirings hoping that the warehouse building would burn down as soon as
possible. The local electrician who visited the warehouse building had
just urged to reduce the load.
The load of dog house elements, extra warehouse elements, tools and
other useful things to be taken to the shelter are soon ready to be
loaded here in Finland. The exact time of delivering is not decided yet
but I believe it’s soon specified. We hope to deliver the load of
things as soon as possible. After that we are anxious to know whether
there are employees at the shelter to assemble the dog house elements
or must we rush to help. There have been some problems again with the
employees.
The animal
protection law in Romania was recently revised and it for example bans
putting down healthy dogs and cats and has harsher punishments for
private people in animal abandonment cases. In practise this law is
supervised by the same authorities as before and we are really hoping
that these authorities would be put under enough pressure to force them
to do their jobs.
So far
the new law has had an effect on Carmena’s job in a way that she
receives thrice as much reports of animal cruelty than before. Of
course it’s wonderful that people are much more alert but Carmena is
already having an enormous overburdened workload and she’s not the one
who is able to order punishments. She just has to check out every
report and report back to the supervising authorities.
The citizens could easily report straight to the authorities but since
these authorities haven’t done their job before it’s hard to gain
people’s trust for a long time. The mental and physical burden Carmena
carries is now heavier than before because of the new law.
Carmena told that the government of Tg-Jiu had granted a company that
catches stray dogs 250.000 euros + a piece of land to be used on
building a shelter where these stray dogs can be taken to and to be put
down. The new law doesn’t concern stray dogs; they are still outlaws
and in the mercy of people’s madness.
As I told in our previous newsletter we and Pro Animals Romania have
been forced to reconsider the new shelter project from a new point of
view. Most likely the land for the shelter will be bought near the
countryside. The current land piece owned by Carmena and her parents is
no longer suitable for the shelter. However, it’s not profitable to
sell it yet since the land’s value will grow a lot in the next few
years in Romania. It’s not even possible yet to sell the land since
Carmena’s parents are not accepting it. I believe that Carmena is able
to benefit from the land by for example renting it for different
purposes.
We will consider
different options for the ownerships of the new piece of land. It’s
possible that Pro Animals Finland registered association will be one of
the owners of this particular piece of land. It would be an investment
for the future projects of PAFi. It would also be one indication
particularly for those authorities we will be asking for funding for
our projects together that our cooperation with Pro Animals Romania is
not just words but concrete actions. Next Monday Patricia starts to map
out what kinds of pieces of land are there on offer in the countryside.
Patricia and the therapy
dogs Dolly and Mica had brought once again Christmas joy for the people
at Susen’s retirement home. They will continue the therapy dog
programme on a regular basis. We are also meaning to continue the
education programme in schools but right now we don’t have the
necessary funding for that.
Then I have something joyful to tell you. Tanja who was with us on our
shelter trip in November carried out her plan and in December brought
the five puppies we had found during our trip to Finland. Now Tanja is
taking care of the puppies and they are looking for homes. The pictures
of puppies and some news of how they are doing you can check out from
this link: http://teeh.vuodatus.net/page/Hoitolapset
Once again, thank you all for your support. Let’s make this year memorable!
“Who has no courage to dream has no courage to fight!”
Regards,
Kiia
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