Experienced on our trip to Tg-Jiu on March 19th to 23rd 2008

This time there were five enthusiastic travellers going to Tg-Jiu: Anu, Carita, Heli, Jukka and me. Of these travellers only Carita was a first-timer though we had "prepared" her for the trip already for several weeks and we were certain that this trip wouldn't be Carita's last.

We knew that this shelter trip would be a bit different from our previous ones since e.g. we knew that there was an extension part built next to the shelter Pro Animals Romania maintains and to which the city of Tg-Jiu has collected stray dogs from the streets. We also knew that in the city's part of the shelter the dogs weren't properly treated and Carmena gives these dogs food every day and tries to medicate the sick and injured ones that would be completely neglected without her help. So of course we were a bit nervous of what we'd have to face and how we'd react to that.

Before the trip began I had hoped that we could go and see Rona, an abused horse, Carmena and Patricia have tried to confiscate from her loony owner. Actually we really did get the opportunity to see up-close how the new animal welfare law, promulgated in January 2008, was adapted at its worst in Romania.

On this trip we also visited several cities of the Gorj County. In those cities they have started to collect stray dogs to shelters maintained by the cities. The mayors of these cities brag how these shelters are EU-standard quality. They also pay the locals to collect stray dogs to the shelters. In shelters these dogs have to survive pretty much on their own.

But why don't I tell you about the phases of our trip in a chronological order.

Very early on Wednesday morning we gathered up at Helsinki-Vantaa airport. We had an enormous amount of things to be taken to Tg-Jiu and we had this feeling that this time there might be some extra weight. When our luggage had been weighed we discovered that we had 48 kilos of overweight! Although we tried to talk about charity and homeless dogs they didn't give us any mercy - we had to pay 5 euros per extra kilo so we'd get to take all the things with us. We thought that if every godparent would pay 1 extra euro in addition to the next goddog fee we'd easily cover these extra kilos. Our luggage consisted of worm treatments, vitamins and nutrition additions, towels, fleece blankets, puppy pens, care equipment, a rug for Rona the horse, gifts for Carmena and other miscellaneous things.

The flight to Romania went well so we arrived in Bucharest at 1.00 pm. The luggage came in a moment through the carousel (last time some of the luggage came not until the next day). We got a spacious rental car for our use and soon we were on the road outside Bucharest. The sun was shining warmly and we noticed the spring was already far. We tried to pay attention if there were stray dogs alongside our way to see whether the number of them had increased or decreased in comparison to the previous trip.

There is a NATO Summit in Bucharest in April and we had heard rumours that the streets are "cleaned" from stray dogs before the summit. Also local mayor elections have effected to this "cleaning". We concluded that there were somewhat less stray dogs than before. We didn't see any dogs in the airport area; usually there has always been some friendly furry friends saying hello to us.

On the way from Bucharest to Tg-Jiu we usually stop by at the same highway rest stops. The first stop, a so-called "refuelling stop", is about 60 kms from Bucharest. During our many trips there have always been the same stray dogs begging for food from people. We always buy a bag of rolls and share them to these friends.

We experienced a nice surprise on our way to Tg-Jiu; we didn't have to drive through the city of Pitest. They had built a detour around the city so we saved time about an hour.

When there were still a couple of hours to go we visited the second rest stop. Also in there we have friends who come to say hello with their tails wagging. This time one of them was keeping a distance. We were wondering why but could just hope that nobody had treated him/her badly.