8.2.2008

I’m happy to tell you that today the load that includes for example the material for 20 large dog houses and an extra warehouse building, a portable generator, dog food, tools, a couple of puppy pens, toys and other useful things has left towards the Tg-Jiu shelter!

Before we got the load ready and arranged the transportation we naturally had a few moments of excitement. I think Kalle Augustson almost had a nervous breakdown because of my constant worrying over the transportation issues but now we can breath easily once again.

We have also noticed over the past few weeks that the world is a small place since to our great surprise we managed to contact Mauri Ojala who had worked in Romania for years managing e.g. the construction of houses and schools built for the Romani people in Romania. Mauri has promised to help us in putting together the dog house elements we have sent to the Tg-Jiu shelter. Of course we have promised to cover the costs when Mauri comes and does his “job”, we have also thought of cooperating on some other projects too. I’ll stay in touch with Mauri and continue negotiations.

Transporting the load to Tg-Jiu isn’t exactly free so we have to pay about 2.500 euros for it. Our Christmas campaign exceeded our expectations and we managed to collect 5.900 euros. If someone still wished to participate in transportation costs of this aid operation, it’s possible. The load and transportation costs are in total about 6.000 euros. We must remember that our Christmas campaign included buying a caravan which was brought from Germany to the shelter already in the beginning of January. The caravan cost 1.200 euros but the transportation didn’t cost anything.

The press release about the transportation of the load to the Tg-Jiu shelter was sent yesterday for a wide range of different media in Finland and we hope the media would express interest towards our work. Radio Häme already asked to do an interview but they wish to find some PAFi supporter from Forssa area to be interviewed. That means some of you living or otherwise engaged in Forssa area could have an excellent opportunity to be on the radio! You can contact me in case you wish to be a part of this, don’t be shy at all, you will definitely get support from us.

Pictures of what has happened

There have been lots of things going on in Tg-Jiu once again. In mid-January they had found a couple of rabid foxes near the city and when discovering this, the first thing the city wanted was to vaccinate the shelter dogs against rabies. So they did but that was just the beginning. Many of you may remember that about a year ago the shelter was expanded since we were meant to start our neutering programme in spring 2007. The city government withdrew the contract they had signed with Pro Animals Romania for the neutering programme. The expansion of the shelter was put on hold.

Now this expanded part of the shelter was finished in a week and they started to collect the stray dogs of the city there to be vaccinated against rabies, kept in the shelter for 14 days and then released. At this moment in the expanded part that the city “maintains” are about 50 dogs that are not vaccinated yet. The dogs haven’t been properly fed either since a 5-kilogram dry food sack a day is shared with all these dogs. The dogs have been very stressed out and two pregnant females have died from a shock.

Pictures of dog catching

There’s a guard whose job is to keep everyone out. However, Carmena has gone inside anyways every day because the dogs need food and Carmena has paid the food herself. The mayor of the city has a hold of the media and by the media he gives statements to the locals saying that the dogs are treated like kings at the shelter. The mayor has also tried to bribe those two representatives of media who have tried to tell the truth.

Patricia told me that she would like to continue the education programme relating to animal protection issues in schools of Tg-Jiu with the local authorities now when the animal protection law in Romania has been renewed and e.g. the police authorities should cooperate with the animal protection associations. However the local police of Tg-Jiu hadn’t even been aware of the renewed law so Patricia had to educate them first. PAFi is trying to support the continuance of the education programme in schools of Tg-Jiu and we will do our best to get Finnish Ministry of Education behind this project in future, too.

We have also had some time to plan our next shelter visit to Tg-Jiu. The time frame for the trip is from the 19 th to the 23 rd of March, it’s Easter time as you can see. We gladly welcome travel buddies with us, I am happy to give you more information.

Here was the most urgent news, more to come very soon!

Best regards,

Kiia