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Pro Animals News 10/18/2009
It’s been only a couple of weeks since our last visit to the Tg-Jiu shelter but a lot has happened since. The Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat reported again that Romania is suffering from a deep financial crisis as well as a political one, when the Romanian government was overthrown almost a week ago. These facts don’t make our job any easier and perhaps support is needed even more in Tg-Jiu.
Pro Animals Romania’s shelter
The temperature in Tg-Jiu has changed from hot weather to cold nights within a few weeks. There’s some snow on the ground and a strong wind has made the air very cold. Carmena and Patricia are worried whether they will get enough food for the dogs if the winter is cold and long. I’ve already told them that we’re doing our best here in Finland to get extra help for the winter. We also have to consider that the Foundation Brigitte Bardot has not guaranteed food donations for next year anymore which means that the dogs at the Tg-Jiu shelter will have to rely only on PAFi’s support.
The shelter’s ceiling had almost collapsed during the summer and it is being fixed so that cold air doesn’t get inside straight through the roof. The roof beams of the warehouse are too far apart and too fragile to hold any nails and attaching big roofing sheets to them is very challenging. The warehouse windows have to be replaced over and over again because the gypsies keep breaking them out of spite. Rats and mice are still causing havoc at the shelter, eating everything they can. This time, their target has been radiator and hot-air fan wires.
Dona and Daria are about the get their new stables. The horses have been living in a garden shed until now and it has become too small for Daria who is growing fast. The new stables will include heat insulation for cold autumn and winter nights. The estimated cost of the stables is 1.500 euros.
Help is very much needed at the shelter but paying for another person’s salary is very difficult so Patricia has refused her own salary to employ another person.
Here in Finland, we could probably manage to collect a large food donation for the shelter but the problem is getting a suitable van. The van would have to be spacious and we would have to loan it or rent it for a small amount of money. We have a few volunteers to drive the donations to Romania in exchange for travel costs, and we hope to find a vehicle that could deliver this important assistance to the shelter.
I hope we can all support Carmena and Patricia together in making the fore-mentioned important things happen.
Tg-Jiu city shelter
Patricia has been sending several messages of what’s going on at the Tg-Jiu city shelter and they have been really awful to read. Things are getting worse and worse at the city shelter and, on average, half a dozen dogs are dying every day. Puppies and older and weaker dogs, in particular, are getting similar symptoms, as though the shelter was having an epidemic. Carmena has tried to get the city vet to treat the dogs but she hasn’t had any luck with it.
Patricia had seen some documents in possession of the vet by accident. The documents included a huge pile of so-called adoption papers. Carmena and Patricia are sure that these documents in question are fake and they have insisted on getting copies of the documents so that they could contact the people mentioned in them and prove that the city is lying about dog adoptions. No dog has been re-homed while Carmena and Patricia have been at the shelter. The city is most likely marking deceased dogs as adopted, thus covering up suspicious actions and poor treatment of the dogs.
PAFi’s report of the Tg-Jiu city shelter
For several months, we worked on a report on the Tg-Jiu city shelter and the actions of the city’s decision-makers regarding stray dogs. We decided to cover only a period during which we have cooperated with Pro Animals Romania, because otherwise the report would’ve gotten too long.
We sent the report to the EU, the national authorities of Romania, the decision-makers of Gorj county and international animal welfare organizations.
The report and the cover letter are available here .
I would like to thank Tuuli who spent last July helping out Carmena and Patricia and doing some important observations of what is going on at the city shelter. Tuuli kept a separate diary of the city shelter for a month.
Regarding the finished report, many thanks to Annina who put together a great English version of all the material.
Thanks to Anu for her advice at different stages of the report.
The Finnish Federation for the Animal Welfare Associations (SEY) wanted to express their support of our project in the cover letter and we truly appreciate SEY’s important support concerning animal welfare. Even though the report in question covered only the city shelter in Tg-Jiu, it will surely also represent several other shelters in Romania as well as all over the world.
We have received e-mails from WSPA (World Society for the Protection of Animals), among others, regarding our report. WSPA has drafted their own note based on our report.
PAFi’s new logo
You might have spotted our new logo on our website. The logo was designed as a charity project for PAFi by the famous Finnish cartoonist and illustrator Milla Paloniemi. Heartfelt thanks to Milla for her cooperation.
Rakel’s latest column
If you haven’t discovered it yet, Rakel’s interesting column that speaks to all is available here (only in Finnish).
PAFi reflectors and shoulder strap baggies
Because autumn is here and the days are getting shorter, I would like to remind everyone to be seen in the dark. Some useful PAFi magnetic reflectors are still available and we even have a few shoulder strap baggies left. All proceeds go to help the dogs at the Tg-Jiu shelter. Stop by for some shopping .
Volunteers are needed
PAFi has acted with reasonably low resources from the very beginning and even though we’ve gotten new volunteers every now and then, their situations in life sometimes change so that we now have an alarmingly small crew of active PAFi members. If you are a good spokesperson, if you can translate from Finnish to English, if you have ideas and are willing to make them happen, if you would like to organize PAFi-events in your own area or can, for example, commit to reading and answering goddog programme e-mails, feel free to send me e-mail at
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Heartfelt thanks to everyone for their support and for having the strength to fight side-by-side with us.
-Kiia-
- SM
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