Dona’s outrageous story
Many who have read PAFi’s news might remember the sad story of a horse named Dona. I’ll tell you the story all the way from the beginning since Dona’s case is a very concrete and touching example of how horses are treated in Romania and especially among the Romani people.
April 2008
In Spring 2008, in early-April, Carmena and Patricia were forced to witness a shocking case when seeing three Romani men beating a half-dead horse on a yard behind the shelter. They were literally trying to beat the horse up on her feet. Carmena managed to call armed policemen, but when the police arrived no one of the Romani admitted to own the horse. After some time of pointless talking the men brought a carriage from their village and took the exhausted horse away while the appalled women watched them go. The police were once again completely useless to do anything about the case!
Dona in April, almost beaten and abused to death
The next day the horse was once again found lying on the yard behind the shelter. This time there were nobody around, even the authorities didn’t seem to be interested in the case anymore. Patricia and Carmena tried to give the horse first-aid and pondered what they could do for the animal.
 
There was a stall behind the shelter originally built for Rona-horse and the women decided to move Dona there. Late at night with the help of Vasile who works at the shelter and a man who works at the city shelter Carmena and Patricia managed to move the horse to the shelter. They named the horse Dona. The women thought they could now breathe a bit easily and think what to do to next to help Dona.
Early on the next morning when Carmena and Patricia came to the shelter they were shocked as during the night Dona had been stolen from its stall and later in the afternoon found abandoned by the main road that leads to downtown. Now there were already a big crowd on the spot as well as media. Of course the police were then there, too. Dona’s owners, however, were nowhere to be seen.
Eventually Carmena and Patricia came to be responsible of Dona and they managed to move Dona back to her stall and hoped to be left alone already. However, during the ongoing day the Romani came to threaten the women several times to the shelter. This was nothing unusual since the women had been threatened by the Romani countless times before. As long as the threats would stay merely as threats…
After the rough start Dona was left alone. She got to wander around the shelter during daytime and rest in her little stall behind the shelter whenever she felt like it. Soon falling in love with the horse, Patricia did everything she could do to help Dona recover.
 
May-October 2008
Carmena and Patricia were still very afraid of Dona’s safety and in a couple of weeks transported the horse to the yard across Carmena’s home, behind sturdy iron bars. In that yard Dona spent a peaceful summer and got stronger. During this time she became very dear to Patricia. In August Dona was accompanied by a foal named Zuzu. These friends managed to spend 1,5 months together until Zuzu couldn’t fight anymore though Carmena and Patricia did everything they could to the save the little one’s life. Zuzu was just too young when she was abandoned so she didn’t have enough strength to live.
Dona and Zuzu in August
Dona and Zuzu in September
November-December 2008
Dona got stronger day by day and turned into a real beauty! Patricia had found a place from a farm nearby for Dona to spend the winter season in and they had already agreed that Dona would “hibernate” in a place with some friends and a warm stall. Then suddenly something unexplainable happened. One day after Carmena had come home, brought Dona to the front yard of the yard across her home to eat grass, closed the gate carefully behind her and went to feed the dozens of dogs in her home she all of a sudden received a call from Vasile, the shelter’s worker. He told that Dona’s ex-owner had come to brag to him how he had retrieved his horse! In pure panic Carmena ran to check outside, hoping and praying that this would be just another twisted joke from Vasile. This wasn’t the case - Dona had disappeared from the yard Carmena owns. The lock of the iron gate had been broken. Though Carmena was in a shock she managed to call Patricia who almost fainted when hearing the news. The women called the police, of course, and after begging for help they promised to accompany the women the next day in search of Dona.
The next day when Carmena, Patricia and the police arrived to the Romani village they didn’t manage to find the home of Dona’s ex-owner. The villagers weren’t cooperative to help them to search Dona though everyone knew exactly where Dona was! It’s unbelievable but so very true. When Carmena and Patricia wanted to negotiate with the head of the village, he informed that Dona’s ex-owner wanted 100 ron (appr. 300 euros) of Dona. This wasn’t all, the ex-owner with his buddies also wanted that Pro Animals Romania would pull all the charges made against them and stop interfering their way of treating animals in future. This meant that they simply wanted to blackmail Carmena and Patricia using Dona. What made it all the more complicated was that the authorities hadn’t done their job properly and hadn’t registered Dona’s ownership to Carmena and Patricia so officially the horse still belonged to her ex-owner. Carmena and Patricia had nursed Dona so intensively for the past 6 months that she had no sign of abuse anymore and now they were being blackmailed for money to get Dona back. Even though the Romani had committed a crime when entering Carmena’s yard the police couldn’t get the Romani under control. They had just managed to call the head of the Romani and told that the villagers must not do anything radical against Carmena, Patricia or the shelter. This was because Carmena and Patricia had gotten threats from the Romani all the time. They have even gotten death threats if they interfered with the Romani and how they treat their animals.
Dona’s case had been made public in local newspaper of Tg-Jiu but for some reason the things always get twisted somehow. For example, now they were telling that Dona’s ex-owner claimed his horse was in a great shape when ending up under Carmena and Patricia’s care. He told that the horse got sick since the women started to look after it, ran away from Carmena’s yard and returned back to her owner!
Luckily Patricia and Carmena managed to get a glimpse of Dona almost every day when the Romani men brought their horses to eat grass on the land behind the shelter. The women, however, were afraid to get too close since there were always several men who had threatened them, with the horses.
Even though it was painful to live this nightmare from day to day and worry about Dona and how she was being treated, it wasn’t rational to give in to blackmails. If Carmena and Patricia would have paid the ransom to get Dona back, they would’ve been blackmailed in some other way in future too. Carmena and Patricia filed a report of Dona’s case already in early-November but the authorities didn’t do anything. The latest rumours from the Romani village they heard were that Dona had died because she had once again been treated poorly and she had been used for heavy work from sunrise to sunset. Carmena and Patricia tried to visit in Romani village personally to check if Dona was still alive though they realized they were taking a big risk of getting beaten themselves. While visiting in the village, they didn’t manage to find Dona.
January 2009
In January 2009 the gipsy man who owned Dona came to the shelter to tell that the city catcher service had taken Dona and other mare to the public horse shelter. He wanted Carmena and Patricia to persuade the manager to give Dona back to the man without paying. The manager told the women that the horses had been collected since they had entered someone’s land.
Carmena and Patricia visited the public shelter and found Dona who looked very weak and sad. Dona instantly recognized a familiar voice when Patricia called her. The women gave the horses some bread since they only had some straws to eat. Unfortunately it was impossible to take Dona from the shelter legally. The next day Carmena and Patricia saw Dona’s owner near the shelter and once again he had managed to get Dona and the other mare back.
Below pictures of Dona in the public horse shelter of the city
 
February-March 2009
On Feb-Mar the police began to investigate the theft of Dona from Carmena’s private yard. Unfortunately the investigation progressed painfully slowly, partly because the police generally don’t find animal-related cases important. All in all, the start of the investigations was very laborious and time-consuming and the police’s attitude towards neglected, abused or stolen animal was very indifferent – the animal is seen merely as an object, a thing.
April 2009
In early-April Carmena and Patricia saw Dona with her owner near the shelter and were shocked to see the horse’s current state – she was really weak and sick. The women asked the owner why Dona had bloody bruises on her front legs and he replied that the horse kept stumbling and falling on their long trips when pulling a carriage. Carmena and Patricia encouraged the man to take care of Dona since the horse was clearly in a bad shape.
A couple days later Dona’s owner reappeared again. This time Dona looked even worse and the bruises on her legs were even larger and severe. Worried, Carmena and Patricia called the vet and police. The police, too, asked the man of Dona’s condition. He just answered that Dona is used as a workhorse every day and they take trips to the village about 60 km farther. The owner claimed he couldn’t take care of the horse but was willing to give up the horse if Pro Animals Romania pulled the theft charges against him. When he was asked to give a written agreement, he pulled back, almost hit the police and ran away, leaving Dona.
Dona had bloody bruises also on her back and bloodsplatters everywhere. When the owner was asked why the horse was so bruised, he told he beat the horse every now and then because it was normal! On her front legs Dona had so badly infected cuts that the horse could barely walk.
 
  
When Carmena and Patricia tried to move the horse to their yard to safety, the weak and exhausted Dona kept falling on her knees so that the bruises on her legs opened up. They bled so badly that the women had to tie the legs to stop the bleeding. Carmena and Patricia called the vet and local representatives of sanitary veterinary direction to witness Dona’s current condition. Now Carmena and Patricia are once again fighting to cure Dona. The horse has not only cuts and infections but also respiratory problems that will take a long time to heal. Luckily according to Carmena and Patricia Dona still has strong will to fight for a better life and she doesn’t seem to show any bitterness of having experienced yet another nightmare on behalf of her “ex-owner” that she already thought was in the past.
 
June 2009
Early in the morning on 23th of June Dona gave a birth. She got a beautiful baby who was named Daria.
Pro Animals Romania have made a complaint of Dona’s owner and given all the necessary documents and photos not only to the police but to local sanitary veterinary direction so Dona’s owner would get a fine and Pro Animals Romania could legally and officially gain the ownership of Dona.
So far the investigations led to Tg-Jiu court giving a fine of 150 euros to Dona’s ex-owner. The investigations are now over. What remains to be seen is whether Dona will stay under Pro Animals Romania’s care or given back to her so-called owner. Carmena and Patricia are fighting for Dona's life and ownership and they have hired a lawyer to help them.
Dona’s story is just an example why the animal welfare issues of countries like Romania must be addressed e.g. on EU-level and why solutions to them must be found so the animals wouldn’t suffer still for decades only because we who respect and care for animals can’t help these animals in their despair alone.
-Kiia-
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