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 "We need a safe place to live. Please help!"
The old PAR shelter
In practice the old shelter was owned by the city of Tg-Jiu. However, Pro Animals Romania has taken care of the shelter and its hundreds of dogs already since the year 2002. The city of Tg-Jiu hasn't participated in maintaining the shelter or covering any costs during these years. Fortunately the city of Tg-Jiu hasn't forced Pro Animals Romania to pay any rent for using the shelter. For several years the city of Tg-Jiu has tried to evict the shelter dogs away from the current area so the land could be taken to a better use by selling it to build new houses. Suddenly in the beginning of 2011 the land of old shelter was claimed back from city by two individual persons who had lost their lands to covernement in reign of Ceausescu. These new owners started immediately force Carmena to take dogs away as soon as possible from their land. Also the Romani community behind the shelter has made complaints about the shelter to the authorities almost weekly. Carmena and Patricia have fought for the lives of the shelter dogs for all these years and won for the time being.
Years of trouble finding a suitable new shelter
About 7 years ago Carmena and her family bought a piece of land near the landfill of the city. She dreamed of building there a new shelter with veterinary services. During the years more and more people built their houses near the lot and finally in the end of 2008 it became clear that it was impossible to build a shelter on the lot since the neighbours didn't approve of it.
During 2009-2010 Carmena and Patricia actively sought for a suitable piece of land to finally start to build the new shelter. However, they were unable to find a lot that was proper and reasonably priced.
New shelter to be built on a hall complex owned by the city
We were already getting desperate when the city of Tg-Jiu suddenly offered Pro Animals Romania a hall complex that had been deserted for decades. Changing the hall complex to a dog shelter is a challenging task and the city government insists that Pro Animals' are able to invest 50.000 euros for the project just to start with.
The situation so far
So far the first part of new shelter is finished and over 200 of the dogs at the old shelter have been transported to the new shelter. The first part of the project include also some rooms for treatments, recovery and quaranteen as well as warehouse for food. The costs of the first part were 42.000 euros including labour and materials. We still need funds of ca. 40.000 - 50.00 to complete the work until the time has run out. At the old shelter there is still 350 dogs who has to be rescued during next Summer.
Photos of the hall complex and lot here.
Dogs’ lives at stake: it’s the new shelter or no shelter at all
If, for some reason, we can’t finish this project or even keep it going, PAR's old shelter will probably shut down in 6 months. The destiny of all the dogs there is the same, sadly. I’m sure this is not what we want to experience.
Though we are facing an enormous task, when succeeding in it, it will be a wonderful example of cooperation between Finland and Romania and will lead the way as an example for Romanian authorities and other animal welfare activists on what can be achieved by cooperating. Are you all with us on this project?
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