PRO ANIMALS

OUR SHELTER – THEIR HOME

The shelter we are running is a no -kill shelter meaning that no healthy dog is ever put to sleep, and even if some are found sick with different health problems we do our best to recover them, fighting for their life. At a number of about 400 dogs in our care in the shelter( but also other tens of dogs and cats we have at home and others we feed on the streets), found sick wandering the streets, rescued from the municipality’s catchers or abandoned, we do our best to offer them good conditions. Although from outside it may seem facile, shelter life is not easy at all,- you can’t figure out unless you’ve ever volunteered in an eastern-european shelter – but despite the difficulties we have to face daily, we never give up.
The shelter building belongs to the municipalitybut since 2001 we are. The city hall continuously threatened us with eviction since 2003, under the pretext that they must demolish this shelter as they must give it to people in order to build houses. No matter how much we wished to leave their shelter and build our own shelter, this wasn’t possible because low financial means.We reached a point where we started to move towards building a private shelter and this is mainly our most important project.

Workers and volunteers – we are there every single day, but it is not an easy work for 2 people to have a clean shelter and happy and healthy dogs – especially taking into account that the activity of our association is so complex – so workers are extremely much needed. We face huge problems regarding the shelter workers – volunteer is an unknown word here – no one works without being paid especially in a dog shelter ( considered by the big majority of people to be the most humiliating working place ever).

Shelter’s " equipments" - taking into account that we have to collect food almost daily, but also the fact that we transport dogs regularly to the vet clinic or take injured or needy dogs from the streets, a van it is more then vital. Also, as the room near the shelter (see it bellow) is not enough – using it as a warehouse but also as a recovery place – we achieved a caravan. Besides this, we also have a small wooden room.

The horse stable -   that we built in March  2008 in back of the shelter and where Dona stayed for a period, is used for the puppies that are abandoned or for the dogs under recover after the surgery.

IN THE SUMMER

We have very hot summers here. The majority of the dogs like to spend all day lying in the sun, playing or making bath in the middle of the shelter. Work wasnt easy to handle.

Our dogs don’t stay all day long in their kennels, closed, but stay free from morning until late afternoon when is time for food. In the two big courtyards, they all stay free, play, run, have pieces of wood to climb on it etc. Almost all the dogs have their own names, they are very sociable and love to have visitors to spend some time with them.

IN THE WINTER

From autum we start prepairing for winter as here in Romania we have dreadful winters usually.So, like in every year, we buy straws to put in the cages to keep warm and also dressed up some dogs with coats ( as not everyone likes this). The straws has to be change regularly as they get wet.

The shelter being in an open field, as you can imagine, the winter season is extremely hard. The temperatures can reach –22,-24 degrees during the night. Water pipes break,shelter was full of snow and ice. We did our best to provide dogs good conditions.

We passed through a terrible winter here, it had snowed a lot and the temperatures were extremely low. Everything was frozen, the ice covered the entire shelter, we had ice even in the kennels and cages. In 2005 was the coldest winter we had here from 1986. The work in the shelter was very hard, the water in the bowls was freezing in an instant,

Near the shelter there is a room used as warehouse for food, medicines and other items needed but also as a place where we keep dogs with different problems and puppies. Putting radiators to keep dogs warm and also to cook for dogs, we had times when the electricity broke down in this room and it had been very difficult to find an electrician to fix it.During winter,but also the room was also floaded because of the water pipes that broke because of the cold. As you can see bellow the dogs gather all near the radiators to warm themselves.

As the shelter is not enough isolated against the cold, we take home every dog that needs special medical care and attention.

FEEDING TIME

Besides the dry food, we also take the rests of wet food, from schools’ canteens or from the canteen for social help when it is possible. But, when this is not possible, we buy different aliments and cook for the dogs, especially for the puppies, old dogs or the one with health problems.

CLEANING TIME:

Every day  cleaning is made with high attention and care.

REPAIRINGS:

As you have probably read, when there is cold and there are radiators plugged-in, plus the stove for cooking , the electricity system breaks down. Every time this happened, it took lots of time to find an electrician willing to come at the shelter, enter the room where we keep dogs also and repair the electricity. Luckly, during the Neutering Campaign from August 2006, the volunteers, Jukka – who is an electrician – helped us and repaired all the installation with new wires.

PLAYING TIME:

Our dogs love to play, either play with eachother or play with one of us. They are very sociable dogs, very close to us and begging for attention everytime someone is among them. We also have few dogs who , because of the tragedies they passed through, are still frightened and scared of people.

BRUSHING TIME:

When the we have time, the weather is favourable and there are dogs who need a change of look, we brush our dogs. Some like so much this that they follow us everywhere as if asking for a brush.

WALKING TIME:

">When weather is nice and it is possible for us, we get out on a leash the dogs for a walk. They are so happy to visit new places, to go aound the shelter and stay in the grass. Luckly, almost every time our friends from Finland visited us they also took for a walk some of our dogs.