March 2008
Visitor: Pro Animals Finland
"This time there were five enthusiastic travellers going to Tg-Jiu: Anu, Carita, Heli, Jukka and me. Of these travellers only Carita was a first-timer though we had "prepared" her for the trip already for several weeks and we were certain that this trip wouldn’t be Carita’s last.
We knew that this shelter trip would be a bit different from our previous ones since e.g. we knew that there was an extension part built next to the shelter Pro Animals Romania maintains and to which the city of Tg-Jiu has collected stray dogs from the streets. We also knew that in the city’s part of the shelter the dogs weren’t properly treated and Carmena gives these dogs food every day and tries to medicate the sick and injured ones that would be completely neglected without her help. So of course we were a bit nervous of what we’d have to face and how we’d react to that.
Before the trip began I had hoped that we could go and see Rona, an abused horse, Carmena and Patricia have tried to confiscate from her loony owner. Actually we really did get the opportunity to see up-close how the new animal welfare law, promulgated in January 2008, was adapted at its worst in Romania.
On this trip we also visited several cities of the Gorj County. In those cities they have started to collect stray dogs to shelters maintained by the cities. The mayors of these cities brag how these shelters are EU-standard quality. They also pay the locals to collect stray dogs to the shelters. In shelters these dogs have to survive pretty much on their own.
But why don’t I tell you about the phases of our trip in a chronological order.
Very early on Wednesday morning we gathered up at Helsinki-Vantaa airport. We had an enormous amount of things to be taken to Tg-Jiu and we had this feeling that this time there might be some extra weight. When our luggage had been weighed we discovered that we had 48 kilos of overweight! Although we tried to talk about charity and homeless dogs they didn’t give us any mercy – we had to pay 5 euros per extra kilo so we’d get to take all the things with us. We thought that if every godparent would pay 1 extra euro in addition to the next goddog fee we’d easily cover these extra kilos. Our luggage consisted of worm treatments, vitamins and nutrition additions, towels, fleece blankets, puppy pens, care equipment, a rug for Rona the horse, gifts for Carmena and other miscellaneous things.
The flight to Romania went well so we arrived in Bucharest at 1.00 pm. The luggage came in a moment through the carousel (last time some of the luggage came not until the next day). We got a spacious rental car for our use and soon we were on the road outside Bucharest. The sun was shining warmly and we noticed the spring was already far. We tried to pay attention if there were stray dogs alongside our way to see whether the number of them had increased or decreased in comparison to the previous trip.
There is a NATO Summit in Bucharest in April and we had heard rumours that the streets are "cleaned" from stray dogs before the summit. Also local mayor elections have effected to this "cleaning". We concluded that there were somewhat less stray dogs than before. We didn’t see any dogs in the airport area; usually there has always been some friendly furry friends saying hello to us.
On the way from Bucharest to Tg-Jiu we usually stop by at the same highway rest stops. The first stop, a so-called "refuelling stop", is about 60 kms from Bucharest. During our many trips there have always been the same stray dogs begging for food from people. We always buy a bag of rolls and share them to these friends.
We experienced a nice surprise on our way to Tg-Jiu; we didn’t have to drive through the city of Pitest. They had built a detour around the city so we saved time about an hour.
When there were still a couple of hours to go we visited the second rest stop. Also in there we have friends who come to say hello with their tails wagging. This time one of them was keeping a distance. We were wondering why but could just hope that nobody had treated him/her badly.
After arriving in Tg-Jiu at 7 pm we naturally headed straight away to the shelter in which Carmena and Patricia were already waiting for us. Also the only worker of the shelter, Vasile, was still there likewise Diana who is helping Patricia with the education and therapy dog programs. We heard that Diana and Patricia had been cleaning the shelter for four days before our arrival.
The guardian dogs of shelter were attentive and delighted for the reunion! We were relieved to see that Kiti was in a better shape and cheerful again. Although it was already quite dark outside we quickly checked the extension part of shelter (the "city part"). There were many friendly dogs but some of them were clearly sick and weak and in a need of medical care.
Then it was time to move to our hotel. In the reception we were clearly told: "NO DOGS". We smiled and assured that we wouldn’t bring any dogs to the rooms. As usually we accommodated ourselves to the rooms and had some evening snack in the hotel’s restaurant before going to sleep.
On Thursday morning we woke up early and after breakfast we headed to Kaufland’s supermarket that had become very familiar to us. During our numerous Tg-Jiu visits we have bought lots of equipment for the shelter from this supermarket. So we did this time again.
We arrived at the shelter around 10 am and were welcomed by the guardian dogs and a guardian cat. We had some delicious frankfurters to share with them. After this "ceremony" we headed to different duties around the shelter. Anu was quickly taking the warehouse building of the shelter under her command like she had done many times before, began to clean up the cages and recruited Carita to help her. Patricia told that there were a couple of piles of rags and junk nearby the shelter that we could go through and take the useless stuff to the landfill site. Heli and I began to clear up these piles while Patricia helped us by giving instructions. Jukka’s job was to unpack all the equipment we had brought from the supermarket and mingle with the dogs.
There are always so many things to do at the shelter that on our trips during the daytime we have hardly any time to gather up and chat. Everyone is always doing their best to help at the shelter and of course whenever we have some time we try to ask Carmena and Patricia about some things that we find puzzling.
On our first day we had the chance to see a bit more closely how they are treating the dogs in the part of the shelter that the city maintains. The shelter is taken care of to some extent but the truth is that the dogs don’t even get enough food to eat. Already on the first day we had to witness the sad fate of a young female dog that had died the previous night. There were no other visible causes of death than a completely dried up and empty stomach.
During the day Carmena took two puppies from "the city’s side" to Pro Animals Romania’s side of the shelter. Otherwise the dogs would most likely have died in there. They also let us enter inside "the city shelter" so we managed to get a real look at what was happening in there and how were the dogs doing. Sure there were dogs looking good and healthy but since the females and males are there all together, there are sometimes serious fights especially between the males. There was actually already a badly injured dog in the warehouse building; the dog had gotten into a fight with another male dog. And since the females that are not spayed and males are mixed in the city shelter, you can easily imagine what that leads to.
Carmena also told us that dogs disappear from the city shelter very often and no one is willing to tell what has happened to these dogs. A sick dog had already disappeared during the first night or early morning of our trip when no one had been there on the spot to witness. City Hall’s Shelter
At noon Patricia came to tell that she and her mother were going to see how Rona, the abused horse, was doing. They have tried to "take the custody" of the horse from its lunatic owner. A stall that has been built for Rona to the shelter area is already waiting for her. So I took off the cover layer of my clothes, the so called shelter gear, and we headed towards the village on the outskirts of the city of Bumbesti Jiu to check up on Rona.
On our way Patricia told that in the morning a woman had come to the shelter and asked for Pro Animals Romania to feed the homeless dogs of some car market area since according to the rumours Pro Animals’ have plenty of food. Patricia had wondered the source of this rumour and told that even if they have sacks of food in their storage they are meant to last for the shelter dogs for months and there were no extra food to be shared around the city. It is likely that there are lots of rumours like this circling the city and the locals have no desire to check whether the rumours are true or not. They simply assume that Carmena and Patricia will take care of all the problems relating to animal protection issues if the problems are just reported to them.
After we had driven about an hour we arrived in the village surrounded by beautiful landscapes. Rona is owned by some Romani people of Romania and already a glance at the surroundings in which these people live in signs that they don’t have much wealth. Rona was already abandoned by her owner but when the owner and his family realized how interested people are in Rona, they demanded to keep the horse. It is likely that the strategy of the family is to use Rona for getting some money. The fact is that Rona can’t be used as a workhorse ever again so in that way she’s not worth of money. We could’ve paid hundreds of euros to get Rona away from her lunatic owner but would that have been the right thing to do ethically speaking? If we had paid good money of Rona, wouldn’t that have lead to people gossiping about it all over the county and soon there would’ve been tons of horses like Rona waiting to be rescued by paying of course?
We tried to persuade Rona’s owners for over an hour but to no avail. Eventually Carmena informed that the next day we’d be back with a police, vet and reporter of the local TV-channel. Rona’s owner acted very arrogantly and didn’t seem to care much about who would come to check the situation.
We came back to the shelter feeling a bit under the weather with Carmena calling numerous people and arranging a meeting for the next day to have some clarification for Rona’s situation. We also drove to check out the dog shelter that had been built on the outskirts of the small town of Bumbesti Jiu. They will probably start to collect stray dogs to this shelter some day. The shelter was still empty and such a poor excuse of a construction that I’d rather see it empty also in future. Bumbesti-Jiu photos
In the afternoon I spent a couple of hours mingling with the shelter dogs and taking pictures. It was somehow comforting to be in the middle of hundreds of friends, sharing them my thoughts of the injustice of the world and other puzzling things. When I had shared my thoughts and hugged the numerous dogs of the shelter I moved on to check out the caravan brought from Germany in January. Unfortunately there had been a little mice invasion going on in there. In the back of the caravan was some shelter equipment nicely put on shelves. The front part was for changing clothes and lunch breaks. While I was there looking around I had this thought that the next time maybe we could bring an eco-toilet to the shelter since the surroundings of the shelter are getting so lively that soon there’ll be no chance to use the "natural toilet" anymore.
After my check-up in the caravan I realized that it’d be impossible to try and find all the holes through which the mice come inside. We had brought an ultrasound-mouse trap to the warehouse building but since there’s no electricity in the caravan we couldn’t install the mouse trap in there. Anu and Carita continued to clean the cages and Heli and Patricia washed the dirty pallets found nearby the shelter. We figured we could use those pallets somewhere in the shelter.
When the day had already began to turn towards the evening we dragged one of the dog houses donated for Pro Animals Romania’s shelter to "the city part of the shelter" since there were too few dog houses in there. One of these donated dog houses had been taken there already in advance. When we tried to buy a couple of pallets from a store across the shelter to use as an extra shelter for the dogs we were harshly turned down. There were tons of pallets outside the store but apparently the attitude towards the dog shelter was so negative that no cooperation whatsoever could be expected from their behalf. By the way this store mentioned above sold products from Rannila and Ruukki.
At some point in the afternoon we found out that about 200 meters across the road a newly-opened Honda-store was having an opening ceremony and there would be fireworks later that evening. We promised to stay at the shelter as long as the fireworks would last since the dogs would be very restless. The fireworks began at 7:30 pm and for some reason they had decided to shoot those fireworks right across the shelter. Our group split around the shelter and we tried our best to calm the dogs down and luckily this time we managed to avoid panic and the accidents the panic might cause. When we had secured that everything was alright in the shelter, we finally exhaled in relief and went to tidy ourselves up to the hotel.
Later in the evening we were invited over Patricia’s to eat some pizza and catch up on things. On our way to Patricia’s home we also visited her office. There were the office cat Mitzi and a tiny little Bitza that Patricia had saved nearly hairless and stomach full of worms from the city early-March. Bitza was really the liveliest little dog! The dog continued relentlessly to challenge the bigger Mitzi to play. We were glad to see that Bitza would have a happy future ahead of him after the rocky beginning he had had.
At Patricia’s we gave Carmena the things we had brought for her from Finland. We were happy to see how delighted and excited Carmena was when she went through the sent gifts. While we watched how touched Carmena looked we were really glad that we had realized to bring something personal just for her since these gifts obviously had a cheery effect on her. We had brought cosmetics, jewellery, scarves, coats, gloves, vitamins and even warm handmade woollen socks that are really important while working in the shelter. As a little hint for Sanna; we will need more of those socks next winter! We also gave 720 euros that were donated for Carmena personally. Carmena asked us to pass on her most sincere thanks for all of her friends in Finland and told that she would want so badly to come and greet you in Finland. That’s what we hope, too!
It was already a little past midnight when we wandered back to our hotel and got under the covers to sleep a little.
The Friday morning was sunny again and when we had had some breakfast we went to the shelter after stopping by at the supermarket. When we arrived at the shelter I almost immediately left with Carmena and Patricia to see Rona, the horse. On our way we picked up a local vet and stopped by at the police station of Bumbesti Jiu. Two police officers joined us. Also the local TV-channel of Tg-Jiu had sent a reporter and cameraman to do little reportage of the rescue operation of Rona for the evening news.
The animal welfare law of Romania was renewed in January 2008 but the authorities aren’t really aware of the contents of the new law. That is why the police officers of Bumbesti Jiu first had to read the printout of the law Carmena had with her and tried to delve into it. Also the vet found the law completely strange to him and that we had to realize the hard way on the next few hours.
Our "rescue team" of nine members arrived at the home yard of Rona’s owners about 10:30 am and called the family to negotiate. The negotiators of the family were Rona’s so-called main owner, his wife, brother and grandmother. First they checked Rona’s condition and it was obvious that Rona would never rehabilitate to be a workhorse. After over three hours of negotiations and pressuring the result was that Rona’s owner was given a fine and if Rona’s condition wouldn’t improve in a couple of weeks, the owner would be given another fine. After this second fine if there’d be no change for the better in her condition they would start to think whether Rona should be moved elsewhere.
We were completely amazed how these authorities couldn’t do anything else for Rona. When I was interviewed for the news of the local TV-channel I clearly expressed my shock and how the Romanian authorities seemed to be completely useless also in these situations. Of course our comments were translated to the police authorities and so they began to flood with explanations. Carmena and Patricia told us afterwards that it might have been that the police wouldn’t have even bothered to show up if they hadn’t known that Finnish animal protection people would accompany Rona’s rescue operation.Photos of Rona’s rescue.
At some point in the middle of the rescue operation Heli called me and told that the municipal dogcatchers of Tg-Jiu had come to the shelter and were taking one of the dogs from "the city side" away. We asked Heli and others to take a video clip of the event so we could use it against them if necessary. Heli called me again and I asked Heli to give the phone to the catcher so he could tell Carmena where they are taking the dog. After the phone call Carmena told that a company with its warehouses nearby needed a guardian dog and the dog from the city shelter had been taken there. Carmena and Patricia promised to check if the dog had actually been taken to where they had said and not someplace to be killed.
While driving back to the shelter Carmena read us a local newspaper. It was said in the newpaper that the mayor of the city of Rovinari was bragging how the city had a 1,5 hectare EU-standard quality shelter and that he’d pay the citizens 10 leis per caught and brought stray dog. We decided to visit at the Rovinari shelter later in the afternoon. The shelter is located about 30 kilometers from Tg-Jiu.
So we soon headed towards Rovinari and the shelter maintained by the city. When we arrived we witnessed an agonizing view. The shelter sure had a 1,5 hectare so-called large, fenced area but there were only a couple of dogs there and trucks drove across the area all the time bringing tree stumps.
The shelter itself was about 150 sq meters and completely opposite of EU-standard quality. We managed to get inside the shelter and realized immediately that there wasn’t even enough water for the dogs. There were also two immobile dogs in a very bad shape. Patricia and Carmena carried the dogs to the car to take to their own shelter to receive proper care.
During our visit an employee of the shelter came to feed the dogs with half a bucket of dry dog food. He threw this food to the ground for the dogs to eat from as if he was feeding chickens. About 40 dogs tried to grab as many bites from the ground as they could to fill their empty stomachs. There were several dogs locked in cages and these dogs were given no food while we were at the shelter even though we pointed it out several times.
While we were at the Rovinari shelter we noticed that an awful smoke appeared all of a sudden from somewhere. I felt nauseous right away and several dogs began to cough too. When we got outside the shelter I had to check where the horrible smell came from. There was a piggery behind the shelter and for some reason they were burning garbage right behind the dog shelter. Photos of Rovinari shelter
When we got back to the Tg-Jiu shelter we needed to take a couple of dogs to the vet. I left with Patricia to take Scoopy from the shelter and one of the dogs of Rovinari shelter, Nelli as we named her, to be examined. The other dog brought from Rovanari, called Nalle, stayed at the shelter since we assumed he was suffering from hunger and weakness.
The local vet examined Scoopy first. For already several weeks Scoopy had had some trouble breathing and there had been some leaking from his nostrils and eyes. This vet in question had examined Scoopy many times earlier and diagnosed many diseases according to the dog’s symptoms. This time when he had seen Scoopy he was certain that Scoopy suffered from maxillary sinus infection. Scoopy was given medical fluids to his vein and we hoped that this time the diagnosis would be correct. After examining Nelli the vet suggested that the wisest thing to do was to take Nelli to be x-rayed to a human hospital. Those x-rays would show if there were multiple fractures in Nelli’s body. If it would turn out that Nelli would only have leg fractures the vet could fix those. Because Nelli’s legs and tail moved and they were sensitive to touching we agreed that there would probably be no fractures on Nelli’s spine.
After we came back to the shelter from the vet I was quite exhausted and felt a vicious pounding in my head. I hoped it would pass soon because I knew that at its worst I’d have a hell of a night ahead of me.
Anu and Carita had continued the cleaning of the cages on Friday and secured that the warehouse building was also cleaned up. The local bypassers had been interested in what had been going on at the shelter. There had been even a local gypsy youngster singing and dancing for the ladies! The road right next to the shelter is very busy and there’s constantly also Romani people walking or going with their carriages. I can imagine the locals had been wondering to see how we all worked at the shelter sweating like on a marathon!
Heli and Jukka had focused on the instructions of how to build the extra warehouse and had begun to put the pieces together. This construction had quite of a number of different kinds of parts and we had been prepared already earlier that we might not be able to build the warehouse by ourselves. Even the fact that there are so many things to do at the shelter and there’s no use making any plans makes things harder.
We also had another challenge when pursuing to put the warehouse together. Even if we had put together the framework during the day, we couldn’t have moved it behind the locks. This would have meant that someone could’ve stolen the frame from the shelter. We concluded that the construction should be built ready in a day so no one could steal it. We are trying to get Mauri with his team to help with the extra warehouse as soon as they return Romania in May. I doubt that it won’t take long till these professionals manage to build the thing together
At 7 pm Carmena told us that she had to go home since the newsclip relating to Rona, the horse, would be in the evening news and Carmena wanted to see it. We promised to finish up the chores at the shelter and give Vasile a ride home. We did some cleaning up in the warehouse building and said the dogs goodnight by checking that everyone had a place to sleep, the bowls were full of water and there was food to eat. It was already 9 pm when we locked the place up and drove back to the hotel.
Carmena and Patricia came at 9:30 pm to meet us at the hotel. We ate some evening snack there and talked about our day. Carmena told about the evening news related to Rona and called the manager of the TV-channel to ask a newsclip in DVD-format for our use. Before we even noticed it was already past midnight and we were all awfully tired. We wished Carmena and Patricia goodnight and went to sleep.
Soon after I went to bed I woke up to realize I had a terrible headache. I tried to take pills for the pain but they were no use and at some point I started to feel really ill and that lasted for hours and hours straight. Naturally at the daybreak I was pale as a ghost and completely exhausted. I was meant to go to the bank with Patricia before 9 am and see the Carbunesti dog shelter after that but I was forced to stay at the hotel to rest and have others do the things I had agreed to do myself.
After noon I was starting to feel a bit better and called Jukka to pick me up to the shelter. Even though I had been in a really weak condition I was terribly disappointed that I had lost half a day. When I arrived at the shelter I was relieved to find out that all the agreed things had been wonderfully taken care of and even the washing machine bought for Carmena waited in the back of our rental car ready to be taken to Carmena’s home.
Jukka told me that once again there had been some difficulties in the bank. First they had once again questioned how to deposit the donations to Pro Animals Romania’s account but luckily it had all sorted out in a reasonable amount of time. Anu told that when they had bought the washing machine for Carmena she almost had lost her nerves since the salesperson had written a receipt after another. Anu had also felt that they had doubted whether her Visa-card was forged since she had to sign five receipts before they managed to buy the washing machine!
Anu joined Carmena and Patricia to check the shelter maintained by the city of Carbunesti. They were not let inside the shelter. However, Patricia climbed over the closed gate and got a few photos of the shelter itself. There had also been a little cattle shelter in the shelter area with a cow tied to a short tether and a youngish calf. Carbunesti photos
Heli and Jukka had tried to explore the caravan once more trying to find possible mice holes. Unfortunately there were so many hideouts that finding any holes was impossible. We hope that the ultrasound-mouse trap in the warehouse building would have some kind of an effect also on the caravan.
I spent the Saturday afternoon with the shelter dogs since the next day I wouldn’t get the chance anymore. I was feeling a bit wistful when I petted the dogs and thought how I’d love so much if on some of our shelter trips I could just spend every day with these friends without having anything else to do. Sure helping at the shelter and other things related to Carmena and Patricia’s routines are important but the shelter dogs enjoy to be petted and talked to so much that I’d feel awful if I’d pay no attention to them.
At some point I noticed that Jukka was washing the corridors of the shelter with a hose and filled up water bowls with the friendly guidance from Vasile. Anu looked to be very much in her thoughts sitting with a little puppy in her lap and having adult dogs hassling around her on a roof of a dog house. Carita and Heli were also wandering around the shelter petting the dogs, promising to come back soon. Every one of us was probably more or less thinking about the departure home the next day, feeling a bit sad.
At some point we managed to say goodbye to the dogs living in the city’s side of the shelter since the employee left at about 3 pm and would come back not until the next day.
In the afternoon, as usual, Carmena went home to feed her dogs and the dogs living across her house. Every day she also goes to feed some stray dogs living nearby a landfill site. Carmena told us that in the past few weeks the dogs in that particular area have increased rapidly so if there were 15 dogs earlier, now there were at least 50 of them. This might be due to dogs being collected from the city streets and "transported" nearby the landfill to be killed by e.g. hunters from time to time.
As it started to get dark we headed back to the hotel. Later in the evening we were meaning to go and say hello to Carmena’s pets that we terribly had missed. And of course we had to take the new washing machine to Carmena and install it to its new home.
When at about 9:30 pm we arrived at Carmena’s gates, we already heard some joyful barking. We were greeted by twenty wet noses and wagging tails. Carmena’s pets are the most wonderful little creatures and delightful personas. I also went to say hello to the dogs living across Carmena’s yard. Unfortunately it was already so dark that I couldn’t recognize which dog was which but I surely noticed how happy the reception was also in there and how the dogs ran around the yard feeling cheery. In January Carmena had brought a pregnant female to the yard. The female had given birth to four sweet puppies. The puppies were now a month old and ran around briskly with the adults and were curious to sniff my trousers. As I lifted the puppies in my lap I heard satisfied puffing. The puppies smelled still like babies
The evening had once again turned quickly into a night and we noticed that it was already past midnight. It was time to say goodbye to Carmena’s pets and leave to the hotel to get some rest.
