Hunger tales

One day my life changed: I couldn’t see a thing, but I could hear and smell plenty. I somehow knew I had a mom and brothers, I could feel them; but every time my mom came to feed us, I sure knew I had a tummy. I am not quite sure what that is, but she talks a lot…she must be a girl. My mom keeps my tummy quiet, that’s good; my brothers must have tummies of their own, they fight me when lunch time comes. Lucky for all of us we have a mother.

My mom has no more food…I suckle hard, but nothing comes to my tummy. She is mad and screams at me all the time. I am afraid to go look for something to eat, what if I can’t find my way back? My brothers are upset too, their tummies shout a lot at them as well.

I got separated from my family, I don’t know how. I cried a lot, but my mom doesn’t hear me. It’s scary to be alone…My tummy is angry all the time, she fusses and turns and it hurts. I can smell yummy things all around, I chase the smells, but I can’t find anything. My tummy is punching me and it hurts a lot; she is not my friend. I did find some places where people keep food, it smells wonderful. My nose is up in the air, trying to catch all the smells, but my tummy is still upset. If only yummy smells would keep my tummy happy…

I don’t know how long it was since I last ate something that made my tummy shut up, she has been shouting for so long…I have a headache. I tried to give her something, but all I found was a thing that keeps the food for people, they call it “bag”. It’s not tasty, but it smells like food; then I went to a place where people throw away what they don’t want. I found something, but there were a lot of big dogs looking for food and one of them growled at me and bit my ear…it hurt a lot.

People eat all the time. I looked at them and I think this is all they do all day. I once stared at a lady who was eating the yummiest thing ever, they call it “meat”. I looked at her, I told her I was so hungry and that my tummy is hurting badly, but she didn’t hear me. I put a paw on her shoe to get her to look at me and she did…she kicked me and scream “get away, you ugly mutt!” That hurt…I didn’t know I was ugly…

I finally gave my tummy a piece of my mind today. I told her we should forget about food, I can’t find any. “But there is so much food all around, grrrr!!!!” she screamed. “Not for us” I said “ There is never any food for ugly mutts like us”. I am weak and tired, I want to go to sleep forever…that would keep my tummy quiet, for a change.

You can add a happy ending to these tales by donation towards spay and neuter projects in Romania. Unwanted animals don’t have to experience a life of hunger and suffering and pay for a fault that isn’t theirs.

Donate to Romania Animal Rescue and help them continue a job greatly done with over 25 000 spay/neuter procedures supported all over Romania!

You can donate using Paypal:  

romaniadogs@sbcglobal.net  

or directly on           

http://www.romaniaanimalrescue.org/

Hope for the homeless

One simple tram ride in Bucharest made me understand what the word “homeless” really means. One winter day, as the tram stopped at the traffic lights, I saw a small stray dog which was following people as they were trying to cross the street illegally. He followed one crowd up to the middle of the street, then came back with the other ones coming from the opposite side; cars were passing by as it was still green light for them. Then this dog turned around in another direction ( it was a pretty big junction) and followed other people, wagging his tail, stopped in the middle of the street and looked around as if to see where was his human, where was he suppose to go, whom he was supposed to follow. But nobody looked at him, nobody whistled, nobody called his name. And it came to me: homeless means when one is rejected from everywhere, when no direction points to one’s home, when one isn’t called and has no one to follow home. What a terrible feeling!

Over the years, I found so many homeless dogs, so many of them hurt, injured, sick. The lack of proper veterinary care in my hometown drove me insane. I remember the early years, when I had no other animal lover friends to turn to and I was desperately trying to care for such dogs. It then seemed to be a pointless fight; I felt I was doing more wrong than right. I remember trying to save a lot of sick puppies, mange, parvovirus, lice and ticks infested,  broken legs…I had no knowledge, no clinic nearby, no money to take them to another town to see a doctor. It was madness. I will never forget the cry of a puppy before dying as well as I will never forget the horrible feeling of helplessness.

I could fill pages with the stray dogs’ stories; I just have to close my eyes and think about all the dogs I tried to help over the years. Every night, before I went to sleep, I prayed to God to take care of the ones I couldn’t; I could see them all in the back of my head. As the list grew bigger, I stopped praying, because it was too overwhelming to think of so many poor dogs that died in vain.

Seeing my past experience, I am grateful for each stray dog that gets help when he needs it. Over the years, my colleagues from Moreni and I handled serious cases that needed a lot of support and we tried to do our best for them; driving them to Bucharest (about 200 kms) and back made it so much more difficult. However, it was an effort worthwhile. A lot of rescuers started to take severely injured, sick, abused dogs and seek help in Bucharest; dogs like these came from all over Romania and the expenses were not to be overlooked. But no matter how hard it was, our love for the animals and their increasing number on the streets of Romania made it impossible for us to turn our heads.

The Homeless Animal Hospital concept started as an answer to the great need of exceptional medical care for stray animals. The veterinary team that also works for Romania Animal Rescue Inc. struggles to reach out to people who take the trouble of saving a stray dog in need or to pet owners who care for their animals but have no money to pay for medical services when needed. They spare no effort in treating the animals that come to them, but sadly they don’t always have the means to do all they could for them. As every great cause, H.A.H. depends on the goodness of people’s hearts; and that is a good thing. How often do we get to save a life as pure as an animal’s life?

The R.A.R/ H.A.H. team gets to travel a lot, so we also rescue dogs on our way across the country. That is how we found Lipia, Lucy and Ranna, 3 little girls, victims of neglect.

Lipia was found in a village nearby Bucharest at a free spay/neuter campaign. She had a severe case of Sticker tumor and was very scared. She weight about 3,5 kilos and she could hardly be caught, she was that scared (probably as a result of people abuse due to her horrible looks).

She is now fostered by one of the vets, dr Irina Corbu who struggled to treat the tumor and keep Lipiuta safe. She is not that young and looks like she can’t handle the cytostatic treatment that well, so she is not cured yet.  Lipiuta had the opportunity to be taken care of by Homeless Animal Hospital’s vets and she is on her way back to recovery. She still needs treatment and we hope for the best forever home possible for her. Lipiuta turned out to be a very loving girl who just had the bad luck of being homeless and sick in a very cruel world.

Amos was presented to us in the same village where Lipia was found. It was pretty clear he had suffered an accident and it was pretty obvious that he was in a lot of pain. Urgent action needed to be taken. Dr Aurelian Stefan amputated his front leg. Amos is a very cute and loving boy, despite his ordeal. He is now waiting for a forever home that would match his luck when the H.A.H. vets took him in their care.

Coming back from a free spay/neuter campaign in Tecuci, dr Aurelian Stefan spotted Ranna and her two tiny babies. They were all abandoned on the side of a very busy road with little, if any chance of survival. As we stepped down from the car, the sight of things grew more horrible than we originally thought: they were all very skinny with no access to food or water and Ranna was dragging a long chain tied to her chest (she probably tried to escape from it and it ended up on her chest). Dr Aurelian stepped on that chain seconds before she was hit by a big truck; the two puppies were following her everywhere, crying for food. We gave them food and water, they were all desperate for it. They were all covered in fleas, dirty, hungry, dehydrated and could have been killed in any second if not taken to safety. It choked us all to see just how much indifference and cruelty there is around us. These 3 tiny lives were so inconvenient that they had to be dumped in the middle of nowhere and wait for death: slow and painful or quick, as road kill, it doesn’t matter, just as long as the one who put them there was free of responsibility.

Ranna and her two tiny boys will go to a foster home in UK soon.

I was also there last months to a free spay/neuter event when this little girl came to be spayed, but her owners complained about her health. As it turns out, she had a big stone in her bladder, which must have been very painful and, left untreated, deadly. Dr Aurelian helped these poor owners to have their pet healthy again for free thanks to the Homeless Animal Hospital concept.

 

But none of these cases (any many more) would be possible without your help. H.A.H. depends solely on your kindness and generosity and promises to be a light house in the dark for the innocent animals who need an excellent and dedicated team of vets.

You can follow our work on:

 https://www.facebook.com/Homelessanimalhospital or http://www.romaniaanimalrescue.org/

You can donate using paypal: romaniadogs@sbcglobal.net   
or directly on                       http://www.romaniaanimalrescue.org/

Dead dogs walking

They are everywhere in Romania; doomed to be alive, abandoned and then killed by a law that was never designed to help them or give them a chance to some kind of future. We see them every day on the streets roaming, confused and hungry, moving closer towards their imminent death. More than ever, every stray dog that comes across my path is a dead dog walking. This status was given to them from the moment they were allowed to be born into a world that rejects them instantly. People will say all sorts of things to excuse their lack of responsibility, but all in all, this tragedy was created by the indolence of the authorities and by a series of selfish acts, more or less cruel, or guided by misunderstood compassion or guilt, that allow a new life to be created only to be destroyed…sooner or later, in a more or less of a barbaric way. 

When the mass killing law was voted I thought I could not bear to see it applied or to live in my own country, knowing what is happening. For a while, I couldn’t believe someone would actually enforce such a demonic strategy; nine months later, after the peak of the massacre has passed, I find myself living almost the same life I did before, but more aware of the importance of the massive spay/neuter events performed all over Romania. I guess I should be honest and say, although I will never stop fighting for the dogs and for the humane way of solving the stray issue problem, I had to and did find a way to cope with this nightmare. Although I never stopped feeling the horror, the tragedy of it all, my brain created a sort of shield that allows me to register the information and use it, but not completely understand it to the full extent of its atrocity. I instinctively found a way to protect my mind of going insane. To this day, I can’t really understand how I can pass by a dog and think about how long it will be before he is killed and move away. The alternative would be unimaginable, because, despite the authorities’ firm conviction that mass killing is efficient, the streets are filled with new and fertile dogs, who have all the resources and enough territory (left available by exterminating all the old sterilized dogs) to breed.

I guess I am not very original when stating that the politicians have left me voiceless and with an unbearable feeling of helplessness. I guess throughout the world’s history, a lot of people had this exact feeling. Seeing the stupidity, the absurd and the infinite cruelty of this law and can’t do or say anything to stop it is a continuous source of frustration and suffering. Seeing these dogs walking on the streets, rapped in their immediate suffering (pain, heat, hunger) unaware of the bleak breath of their imminent death lurking around them creates a feeling I never wish on anyone: heartache, despair, outrage, choking, insanity.

A very good friend of mine called me one morning, very shaken up by a dream she just had. She was with her husband in a beautiful place, on a holiday. Suddenly she was all alone and found herself trapped in a well, struggling to keep her head above water. She tried to scream for help, but no sounds came out of her throat. She struggled in despair and just about when she was close to giving up, she saw two boys looking down at her. She described the happiness that she felt, seeing there was hope for her to be saved. Then, the reply of one of the boys left her dumb: “Come away, it’s just an ugly yellow dog!”. They stepped away and my friend told me about the most horrific feeling she had ever had: helplessness, fear, despair and complete loneliness. She woke up crying and screaming and said she had never felt so worthless in all her life.

We both cried on the phone. 

Old, blind and hit by a car, left in the middle of the road

Three new, unspayed females and two fertile males fighting for food.

Left outside our gate

POisoned and left in the street for children to see

4th of April – a day of goodness

There is no other creature that inspires me more to talk about kindness, generosity, forgiveness, innocence, compassion, strength, love than dogs. My experience with stray dogs taught me that life, as hard and cruel as it is, is worth living; to forgive is the only way one can continue living and love is why we are living in the first place. These 3 precious lessons made me who I am today, a completely different person, willing to go the distance for what she believes in.

Today I celebrate the goodness that this world still has thanks to these gentle friends. They never judge and they don’t hold grudges, they take each person as they come; good or bad, dogs are willing to risk their lives for their best friends. A stray dog will lick your hand and put his head at your feet, despite the fact he was kicked all his life; a stray dog will always give people a second chance, even if people won’t show him the same courtesy.  

There is still hope for us, as long as they still love us.

Let us learn to be kind, let us remember how to be human again! Support spay/neuter programs throughout Romania, the supreme act of kindness towards stray animals! To show you the hope that these campaigns bring in our country, I went through all my albums showing free spay/neuter campaigns funded by Romania Animal Rescue in places like Moreni, Buhusi, Bistrita, Braila, Targoviste. Whenever I lose my way, these albums tell me there is still hope; and yes, hope comes from numbers, the number of unwanted puppies and kittens that will never ever have to experience pain, hunger, cold, violence, abuse, neglect, disease, death on the streets of Romania.

Return the kindness that they give us, spay/neuter one animal in Romania and save 100!