Why Romanian Dogs?

My name is Mihaela Oprea , I am from Romania and I write this with the hope that people will have a real image of the situation of the stray dogs and the Public Shelters in Romania.

Romania is a country with 320 cities/towns and in the last 5 years every city/town has built at least 1 Public Shelter, some cities build even 2 or 3 Public Shelters for the stray dogs of their area. Here is where the nightmare and the hell starts for all the innocent dogs from the street. Starting with the capture of the dogs from the streets which is mostly done with a pole and loop, sometimes a snare if their tools get broken, where the dogs are strangled, many of them not even making alive to the dog catchers’s van, while the rest of them get horrible wounds at their mouth, teeth removed, cut tongue and so on … Those who survive to live in the Public Shelter are condemned to a horrible life and a tragic death in the end. The employees are cruel people, most of them have no heart or compassion for the animals, hiring criteria it’s not love, compassion or care for the animals but it is a criteria which is related to politics which means that the dominant political group at the area hire their own supporters in exchange of the political propaganda, this is how the hiring it is done most of the time, and this starts from the first worker until the First Manager -that’s why all those horrible people which works in the Public Shelters have nothing to do with caring for the animals, because its about getting a job and about money.  This is how the poor souls end up being starved to death, because the food which should go to the dogs, from the funds of the City Hall it’s stolen by those who work there or the food is only on the papers. The dogs become sick with malnutrition and then attacked by the dominant ones and get killed. Because the staff doesn’t respect the law and the hygiene rules, the dogs are contaminated with bacterial diseases and viruses and none of them gets treated because the City Hall have “no funds for medical treatments “, they are beaten by the workers , their kennels are filthy, the concrete floor are full with feces and urine, no dog houses or dog beds or anything else on which to sit or lay, only a few of them get these when the volunteers provide it. The euthanasia is always done in a suspicious way with no volunteers or NGO allowed to assist and what we hearing about how this is done, it’s not for the “weak hearts” : poisoning, being beaten until death, drowning and other atrocities, the ones which speak are inside workers who will not go to confess or to do a complaint to the police about it because they are afraid they will lose their job or their boss will go after them . . So, this is the “life” of the dogs there and the reality of these “so called Public Shelters” which are in fact, death camp for the souls with no fault .

Now, the animal lovers, the volunteers and the NGOs for animal rights are fighting all these every day for the poor dogs and against these monsters and Hell places, trying to bring justice, to bring some hope, love and care for the dogs. They fight with the workers of the Public Shelters, they fight the vets of the Public Shelters they fight the Managers , the City Hall, they make criminal complaints against all those above trying to force them to respect the law which should protect the dogs but, while all this happens, innocent dogs die every day -alone, unloved, hungry, scared and terrified, waiting for someone to save them.

In the last years, a very large number of dogs were saved and re-homed in countries from Europe, one of them being UK. Without the help of the people from these countries those dogs would be dead today for sure.

If you’ll ever come and see the Public Shelters here, you’ll see dogs that have giving up life, dogs that lost their hope, their eyes look frozen, lifeless, you’ll also see dogs who are desperate for life, to be saved from that Hell. Young pups, adult dogs, old dogs -they all deserve a chance to be saved, to have a life out of that Hell, to be cared for and most of all to be loved and safe.

Without the help of the amazing people from outside our country, we, here could not save and help so many lifes.

From the help of feeding with donation money or food donation to the chance of treating the ill ones until their re-homing to responsible and loving families, for all the dogs, this reaching hand means the world .

The Public Shelters are Hell for all the dogs who end up in it and they only have those who care about them and who love them to help, speak for them and to save them.

The best reward for us – to see the lifeless ones being brought to life again in a new, loving family, the ill ones getting healthy, the ones who lost the hope of life to discover and to love the life again, the ones who feared, to trust again in the love and care of their rescuer/adopter.