The false sense of security

The shelter is a safe harbor in the tormented lives of stray dogs. Some of them experienced such hunger or sickness or physical trauma, one wonders how they had survived so far, so the shelter seems to be the right answer, the ONLY answer for such abused animals. Everyone breaths easy when the answer to their febrile question “is this dog safe???” comes into the form of  “yes, he or she is safe in the shelter”. 

It is rather easy to build a shelter in Romania. One might do it in their back yards and have a very special relationship with their neighbors, or find a piece of land and start building kennel after kennel, depending on funds and what scraps they can find. Oddly enough, the kennels become full even before they get built and as it happens, one can easily go from 20 to 100 dogs over night. Because once there is the notion of “shelter”, filling it to the maximum  and beyond comes natural. People you know or those who have never spoken to you before offer their help into signaling the places in town where it is absolutely MANDATORY FOR STRAY DOGS TO BE TAKEN AWAY. Which usually happens to be all over town and the surrounding villages, woods, fields and so on.

Once one decides to start building a shelter they will find that there are dozens of animals lovers in town willing to help fill the kennels. Most of them promise to come visit their dogs, no help or donations needed between animals lovers, after all, they share the same cause and it would be offensive to measure such precious relationship in, say, dog food. But then the visits stop and they hardly ever admit they have dogs sitting around for years in kennels. 

There is also the problem of whether the shelter is a proper home for these animals. The shelter isn’t meant to be a permanent home in the first place, but who can guarantee that once taken from the streets the dogs will find good homes? Some are so mentally traumatized that staying in a noisy shelter, locked up in a small kennel is the worst thing that could happen to them. But mental health over a bowl of food everyday is an easy matter to solve. Dogs have no need for mental health once they are safe in a shelter!

Dogs have proven to be social animals who need companionship – their main purpose nowadays is exactly that, keeping company to people who find them pleasant to have around. They need mental stimulation, they need exercise, they need to please their master, to bring them their slippers in the evening and paper in the morning. Dogs need to belong to someone. 

I help run a small dog shelter in Romania and we had this dog named Dexter. He was rescued from the streets with his mother 5 years ago, when the dogcatchers killed a lot of stray dogs in our town. He was just a skinny puppy and he spent all his childhood behind bars. His notion of life was “I have food every day, mostly the same food, few toys or treats; I am dry and somewhat warm in the winter, they bring me straw. I feel like playing, but there’s never enough time for that. I want to lick someone’s hand, but all the hands around me are always so busy to keep me fed and dry, there’s no time for licking…I am alone!”

Dexter was a dog whom we thought had mental issues because of being locked for so long. But luckily he was adopted and soon after that, his owners had to leave for a few days and left him with a nanny. They filmed when they got back and it was so amazing to see Dexter so happy to see the ones he had dreamed about being “his people”. He finally had a family he was happy to see again, he finally BELONGED to someone. It was priceless to watch. 

Dexter in his new home

For the past 13 years of volunteering in Romania, building a shelter, rescuing dogs from the streets, working alongside medical teams who did free spay/neuter projects throughout Romania, I was always heartbroken over how lonely these loving animals are. Beyond suffering of hunger, cold, disease, neglect, abuse, dogs suffer from loneliness and my belief is that this is the biggest tragedy of their life. They are animals designed for loving us, but we repeatedly deny their life meaning and cast them away. 

I am confident that this tragedy can be stopped only by spaying more dogs, so they are not born unwanted and doomed to isolation and death. 

Building more shelters in Romania is not the answer, SPAY and NEUTER is!

Please support Romania Animal Rescue in their struggle to end animal's suffering by doing more free spay/neuter projects in Romania!

PayPal : donations@romaniaanimalrescue.org