Some early-autumn news

Since our shelter trip on August Patricia managed to pass all of the five exams of her studies. Last week Patricia started the second year in her veterinary medicine school in Timisoara. Carmena’s doctorate studies have been on hold for some time because of the lack of time but luckily some of her research has already been published on several publications. Congratulations to the both of them for their excellent accomplishments!

General news

The necessary documents to found the new national animal welfare organization, LADAR, have been undersigned in Bucharest in mid-September. Among many other similar associations, Pro Animals Romania is one of the founders of this organization. When Patricia’s father was the head of F.R.P.C.A, he e.g. did reports, filed complaints and reported of animal cruelty crimes all over Romania and now he will play an important role on LADAR. The energetic grand old lady of animal protection, Mrs. Maria Beck, who has fought for the animal rights and renewing of law in Bucharest for years, will complement the organization. A top lawyer Paula Iacob, specialized in women’s rights in Bucharest, will cooperate with LADAR. A successful, powerful roof organization is truly needed in Romania to speak for animal rights. Let’s wish the best of luck for LADAR and its members!

The town government of Bucharest has recently set up an authority instance, ASPA (the Authority for Animal Surveillance and Protection). ASPA has signed a cooperation contract with Bucharest University of Veterinary medicine and together they have founded a unit called Veterinary Police. LADAR will sign a contract with VP in order to enhance their activity as wide as possible. Since September 10th VP has been cooperating with Vier Pfoten – Four Paws to spay & neuter stray dogs in Bucharest. The cooperation includes catching, deworming, spaying & neutering and vaccinating stray dogs. Vier Pfoten aims at spaying 70 dogs per day. The city of Bucharest provides necessary facilities for the project but Vier Pfoten covers all the other costs.

The government of Bucharest has promised in their contract that no city employee or cooperation partner of theirs will take any measures, including euthanasia and poisoning, against stray dogs. Let’s hope that Bucharest will keep this promise and this fine operation can continue! Bucharest has often shown example for the other cities regarding animal protection issues, too. Now hopefully others will follow this path Bucharest has taken!

About the shelter

There are still only two workers at the shelter. However, one of them has already threatened to leave. It’s very hard to find employees to work at the shelter and nearly impossible to find a dependable one. We just have to trust that Carmena and Patricia will find the much needed extra helping hands somewhere. Soon it will be winter so without adequate number of workers the situation is really bad.

What’s positive is that the cooperation with the new vet has gone really well and strengthens week by week. It’s relieving to know that the shelter dogs have a trusted vet that is also ready to come to the shelter and not see dogs only at the clinic.

An operation to rescue tens of dogs at a nearby village

During September Carmena and Patricia have been forced to interfere with the problematic situation at a small village nearby Tg-Jiu. On the first week of September Carmena received a phone call from a villager that had told how his neighbour was in a hospital and the neighbour’s tens of dogs were now left without anyone to look after them. The neighbour’s cow and a couple of ducks had been taken to some neighbour but nobody wanted to take care of the dogs. The rumour was that the dogs terrorized the whole village and the starving dogs even ate each other.

Of course Carmena hurried on the spot to check the situation. There were a lot of dogs, surprisingly many of them were purebred. The dogs were very friendly and weren’t afraid of people. They looked astoundingly well-cared for. The villagers told that the owner of the dogs was unemployed but went to collect things daily on the outskirts of the city to sell them and to buy food for the dogs.

The first thing Carmena did was to leave many sacks of food for the dogs and take a couple of puppies with her. Carmena and Patricia have brought food for the dogs regularly and asked the neighbours to put some fresh water for the dogs to drink. They have given the dogs dewormers as well as tick and flea treatments. The environment is apparently swarming with fleas. Carmena and Patricia have taken ten dogs to the shelter and take care of them there. The rest of the dogs are still living in their own home and waiting for their owner to come back.

Here are some photos of the home of the woman that was hospitalized.

Here are some of the dogs that were taken to the shelter for the time being.

The sewerage problem of the shelter

We received help to fix the sewerage problem of the shelter in August-September and so far the health inspectors have been pleased with the result. In addition to getting a sewerage pipe to the third part of the shelter, they had the back of the shelter and well emptied of sewage and cleaned five times by professionals. Of course there were some problems when the workers had to be pressured to finish the job and the truck also stopped working in the middle of the project. I have added a couple of photos of the project . Once more a big thanks for all of you for your help!

Wishing you all a beautiful autumn,

Kiia