The visit to the Tg-Jiu shelter on the 10th to 14th of November 2007

This was my third trip to Tg-Jiu and definitely the most depressing one of them. Seeing the winter coming I keep on thinking about the conditions the dogs live in and my own smallness since I can’t help as much as I would want to. There were certainly more dogs in a bad shape and really small puppies in the warehouse building than on our previous trips. And in addition to this the guardian dog of the shelter, Kiti, had injured its leg very badly and lost weight alarmingly much. On my two previous trips Kiti had always been the happiest dog and the dog that had been in the best shape out of all the dogs.

If I think the trip as a whole, it went well. I enjoyed the company very much, the dogs were nice and transporting Cesse and Tasha to Finland wasn’t too complicated. We managed to do something concrete and get at least something little done to improve the shelter conditions. For example we bought fan heaters, disinfected cages and got new pallets as sleeping pads for the dogs in the warehouse building. These may sound like nothing but you have to start from somewhere.

I still feel that our most important mission is to try to collect donations together for the new shelter. The new shelter would be much more practical which would help with many every day chores. This way much more time could be spent on educating and also it would mean some free time for Carmena.

Now that I’m doing this report, I’d like to send you all greetings from Gria and Klenkka. Both of these cuties are doing just fine and have been members of my six-dog-pack since the day they arrived. Gria in particular has had some problems with being housetrained but it has improved a lot in that area too.

I took Klenkka to a vet to find out if anything could be done to the dog’s injured leg. Unfortunately the conclusion was that Klenkka will walk on three legs for the rest of its life. Apparently Klenkka had been run over by a car when it was little and that caused a broken pelvis. I can be happy about the fact that nowadays the dog has no pain of any kind and Klenkka seems to be a very happy young man. Sure I feed him additions that take care of joints so the healthy hind leg that is under the biggest stress stays healthy.

Gria is a very interesting dog. It’s very social and it has an amazing yearning to be touched. Every day Gria sticks its nose against my cheek and it’s almost as if it had grown attached to it. It doesn’t lick or jump all over, it just stays there still. Only two times Gria has accidentally licked me when licking its own lips. Gria is very intelligent, kind and obedient. It’s obvious that Gria has been beaten in the past and that why it’s probably afraid of all men. Anyhow, these dogs are both great and I haven’t had any regrets on taking these two orphans to live with me!

With autumnly regards,

Heli