Baby steps back from hell

As a dog, being born unwanted in Romania means they will most likely suffer the consequences for it. Justice or logic will not stand in the way of them getting abused, injured or, often times, killed. Stray dogs are responsible for a number of things that go wrong in this country, including poverty, as it is a known fact that their keep in public and private shelters sucks a lot of the budget funds that should be better used in hospitals and schools; never mind that public shelters use that money only on paper and that private shelters are not funded by the government, the general public knows best.

            Although useless, dangerous and dirty, stray dogs have the great quality of being excellent target practice material for professional or amateur hunters. One can find them dumped all over the fields and, because they haven’t completely lost their domestic side, they come greeting the hunter in the hope of being rescued, instead of running away and saving their lives. The police and media keep silent, because nobody cares about a few stray dogs getting shot and the general public can sleep peacefully knowing that Bambi wasn’t murdered...seriously, it’s just a few dogs no one wants, thousands more will be born in no time...

            Lucky is the survivor of such an attack and, because she was found in time, by good people, she became the leading lady of her sad story; hundreds of other such victims die alone, unknown, without ever experiencing anything but hunger and pain.

She was found this winter on a field, lying in her own blood, after being shot and left for dead in the middle of nowhere. Lucky was rushed to the clinic and benefited the Homeless Animal Hospital program, which means she had top quality medical services for free. Both her hind legs were broken and dozens of bullet parts were found under the skin in different areas; she almost lost the fight after the first surgery that fixed her right back leg. A long and very hard recovery followed, but Lucky’s will to live touched everyone’s hearts. I was there for 4 days and got to witness her ordeal. I took her out in the yard a few times a day and fed her, trying to make her as comfortable as possible, although she had an external fixation on her right leg and still a broken tibia on her left; she ate, but her body was too hurt at that time and we were afraid for her life. Lucky had to have a blood transfusion, after which her health improved a lot. 

Lucky spent a few minutes outside with me or with another member of the staff; though painful, she was trying to stand for a few minutes to pee and then carefully get away so she wouldn’t get dirty. Watching her stand still, with her plastic cone and metal fixation, without making a peep, without complaining or asking why did this happen to her or asking for justice or hysterically cursing her attacker...just staring at the concrete or sometimes looking for the sky, humbly accepting whatever we were offering, food and water or even medicine, basic things that should have been hers all along, made me rethink a lot of things. She didn’t know why she was there or what she had done to deserve this, but that small crate was her home where she felt safe and wanted, a home she had earned at the expense of her blood.

This brave girl pulled through and had her second surgery that fixed the broken tibia. She is now on all four and recovering in the home of her rescuer, Mama Hope, where she is also learning about how it feels to be loved and cared for. Lucky is a very sweet girl and her heart, although stopped for a few moments on the operating table, was never resentful towards people. Such a great lesson to be learned by all of us about forgiveness and humility and such a painful way for her to show it to us! We are lucky to have them as best friends...while we still do!

Lucky is one of the fortunate few who make it back from hell. She got to see the humanity’s worst side, but she is now taking baby steps in finding out just how great life can be.

If you were touched by Lucky’s story, please support Romania Animal Rescue’s struggle in preventing such violence by sparing the lives of the thousands of unwanted puppies born each year    in Romania. Spay/neuter is the kindest, most selfless act of love we could do for them, as it prevents them having to experience a life full of torture and indifference. Also, learn about our Homeless Animal Hospital project that helps animal in need and poor owners and their pets: http://homeless-animal-hospital.org/http://homeless-animal-hospital.org/

Choose to be part of the solution, support free spay/neuter projects throughout Romania by donating to Romania Animal Rescue using these details:

                                USA paypal : romaniadogs@sbcglobal.net;

                                UK paypal: donations@animalsni.uk

Please check out our website: http://www.romaniaanimalrescue.org/

Thank you!

There’s no place like...the shelter

More than 100 private shelters in Romania, some, just crowded back yards in the middle of a city/ village.  A lot of people woke up one day as “rescuers”, most of them not knowing what that means and not having a plan, but the urge of rescuing as many animals as possible transformed them in  shelter managers, fundraisers, full time workers and sometimes even into vets. The love for their animals helps them go on and in time acts like a real drug, as it replaces all other activities and sometimes even the need for other human beings around them. But no matter how great the love and how good the manager skills, time has no mercy and it never allows us to be around the animals for too long in one day.

Let’s take for example a shelter that houses 140 dogs; they are all fed daily, vaccinated, spayed/neutered, have treatment for fleas/ticks/worms all year round, enough doghouses and even a playground for them to stretch their legs. We could say it is a pretty well managed shelter and the dogs should be more than happy; a lot of people would be tempted to overlook these dogs, as they seem to be doing well, they are safe and should feel happy enough for the rest of us to take care of the real emergencies out there. But what we all seem to forget is that a shelter isn’t a home and the dogs need more than just a full stomach to be happy. I have seen it so many times, dogs that refuse to eat, even thought they had been starving, but rather get cuddles or just lean their heads against somebody, anybody...because the hunger of the soul is always greater than the one of the stomach. Dogs, we’ve been told, were tamed to be a man’s best friend, so this information must have gotten so stuck in their genetic code, that no abuse is too great for them to forget their mission on this earth. 

Even though this shelter provides all the basics, time doesn’t allow the people to give as much love and attention as the dogs really need and deserve, making it painful for both parties to go on year after year on both sides of the bars.

Not all rescuers manage to provide for their rescued animals and soon their project becomes a place of slow, but well intended torture. The streets are full, the villages provide horror stories and the killing law keeps public shelters working full time, so more and more people decide to become rescuers and open shelters; some do their best and help a number of dogs to be re homed each year, some are lost in good intentions and soon get overwhelmed, having the dogs pay for it and there are those who see it as a profitable business. For all of them, there are plenty of dogs all over Romania and there will always be, as long as people invest in shelters rather than fund for mass spay/neuter events. Seeing so much suffering can be soul crushing and nobody gets immune to it, but we all must realize that suffering is all we will witness, as long as innocent animals get born unwanted and take the place of those who get rescued or die.  

This is an abandoned building in Moreni in which stray dogs find shelter; although it is a filthy, disgusting place, they consider it a home and spend their winters there. A few kind people thought to clean it up, but as long as there are dogs on the street, they will go to this place for some comfort and, more disturbing is that people will always use it as a waste dump. 

After so many years working in animal welfare, both as a rescuer and as a veterinarian technician, I still surprise myself standing after seeing so much suffering; there was a time when I thought I’d get so full of pain that I ‘d implode and end up an empty shell, but my brain found a way out. I am so convinced that one day there will be no more dogs for them to torture, starve, neglect, abuse and I am determined to live to see it. Every dog spayed means thousands of dogs who will never suffer; it is as simple as that. There will never be enough shelters for all the dogs that end up being dumped because they are unwanted; I sometimes imagine a shelter with bunk kennels, wouldn’t that be hysterical? The need for sheltering is huge at the moment, but only because we keep focusing on the wrong end of the problem, instead of going to the source and put an end to it; for each dog that is lucky to be taken to a private shelter, there are at least ten others who will take his place, simply because the territory becomes available and there are more food resources with every dog that leaves the street. This way, the shelters get overcrowded soon, while the streets remain full of roaming dogs.

 
 

 

 

 

Running a shelter of dogs means I get to see a lot of sad eyes that look at me with hope, but that hope grows weaker and weaker as the years go by; having to update adoption albums, adding another 6 months/1, 2 years to their time spent behind bars is as heartbreaking as any other experience with stray animals in Romania. We have to live with the idea that some will never get their perfect homes and not because they aren’t perfect, but because there will always be others who are smaller, curlier, scruffier, cuter or simply in a more dramatic state than them and this happens simply because others continue to be born unwanted.

Choose to be part of the solution, support free spay/neuter projects throughout Romania by donating to Romania Animal Rescue using these details:

 USA paypal : romaniadogs@sbcglobal.net; UK paypal: donations@animalsni.uk

Please check out our website: www.romaniaanimalrescue.org.

Thank you!