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#CloseIllegalShelters
Dogs are imprisoned in awful dark cells waiting to die.

Put your name to our case to help ROLDA free them from filthy prisons!

Despite the current laws that enforce minimal conditions for a shelter to function legally in Romania, the reality is horrific: dogs are crowded in small dark cells, often injured, abused, searching daily for food on a floor full of excrement.

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Why ROLDA and our supporters are angry?

Inhumane Transport

There are strict laws regarding the humane transportation of animals within the EU. Dogs must have their own individual cages with room for them to journey comfortably and safely. Public shelter transport consists of being thrown in the bag of a filthy van with nothing to prevent the spread of disease or violence.

Dangerous Practices

Public shelter owners and operators have little to no veterinary training with no concern about the welfare of the dogs in their care. Dogs are frequently incorrectly anaesthetised, sometimes killing the animal with far too high a dose.

Watch this short video to meet a dog saved from Galati’s public shelter by a local. The sleeping dog was transported to the woman apartment, where he continued to sleep for another 12 hours! The dog was captured few hours before being taken out from the PS, the dog is not aggressive, contrarily, he was unnecessary tranquilized and sedated with a supradose. As awful as it looks, this is a happy case, because some people go immediately to search for their lost companions and never find them being mysteriously gone between the catchers van and the shelter gate.

Appalling Conditions

Public shelters are run by cruel and corrupt individuals. Their income comes from the Romanian government who pay them according to how many dogs they can “remove” from the streets. They do not care about the welfare of animals, they euthanise at any opportunity and there are no regular or unannounced inspections to hold them to account. Owners do not care if their shelter has become a hellish cesspit within which starvation, disease and violence run riot.

Rampant Disease

The often complete lack of hygiene in public shelters are a huge petri dish within which communicable canine diseases can thrive.
It is a common and tragic occurrence that previously healthy dogs are brought into shelters and soon die from an easily preventable and treatable illness that proliferates in the awful conditions within which the dogs are kept.

No Way Out

The only good outcomes for dogs unfortunate enough to find themselves in a public shelter is the outside chance of adoption into a good. However, owing to the repulsive and insufferable conditions, potential adopters want to leave immediately – well before they have had a chance to choose a dog for adoption. This results in a vicious cycle – a nightmare – from which dogs have such a slim chance of escaping from.

Whilst Romanian law stipulates that public dog shelters (abbreviated often PS) should be operated with decent standards of hygiene and care, the reality is both horrifying and desperately sad. Public shelters are no better than filthy abattoirs in which dogs are neglected, abused and murdered.

Take a moment to read what really happens with in Romanian Public Shelters

The (un?)fortunate dogs who somehow manage to survive days in this hellish environment are ‘euthanized’ if they are not claimed or adopted. Adoption is rare. There is no official monitoring of death – euthanized dogs, no regulations, only facades. The dogs are at the mercy of cruel administrators whose only concern is taking government money for each dog they feed and/or kill, often in a barbaric fashion.

This situation was made that much worse in 2013, as public shelters became permitted to euthanize 14 days post-capture, after an alleged attack on a child in a park from Bucharest by a pack of stray dogs, which resulted child death, unfortunately. Furthermore, the lack of real inspections and meaningful penalties for poor management means zero investment in their facilities; disease, starvation, and cannibalism are rife. Public shelters are spread all over the country and most of them are grotesque killing-houses that are a blight on Romania.

There is no justification for this kind of inhumane and medieval treatment of animals, all for the mistaken belief that this type of activity helps reduce the stray population.This awful practice simply does not work..

Only gentle and submissive dogs are easily captured, leaving the aggressive and feral dogs to reproduce. Additionally, trap, neuter, and return became illegal in Romania in 2016, so taking dogs from the streets only transfers their food supply over to puppies born after them. In other words, space some leave is simply taken by others. The kill method of stray dog control merely causes fear, suffering, and violent death for the poor animals who are unlucky enough to be caught.

Moreover, some independent charities who claim to provide a humane alternative to public shelters prefer to keep dogs in horrific conditions to gain pity and donations and in some cases, even enthusing hundreds of dogs annually while refusing to explain to the public their reasoning for taking the lives of these dogs. And that’s revolting!

The consequence of inaction is obvious: Thousands of dogs will continue living in misery.

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Thousands of dogs are prisoners of incompetence, negligence and abuse; living and dying in filth and agony.

Sadly, thousands of illegal shelters exist across Romania, and the sole authority enforced to control them, the National Veterinary Authority, ANSVSA, allows them to continue operating.

Together we are stronger to demand ANSVSA to:

Monitor all the shelters (funded publicly and privately)

Inspect each shelter meets all the conditions for a minimal EU standard, as required by law

Close immediately all the shelters who previously have been fined and who presently don’t have a legal shelter, as requested by the law

Enforce all shelters to have a contract with a veterinarian who can provide proof of the reasons why dogs have been euthanized

Corruption – Case Study

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Illegal shelter from Prejmer is a public shelter, the place where 100 dogs (30 cats and 69 dogs) were found dead and only 17 still alive which could have been saved.

A room full of food was proof that the poor animals died because of neglect of shelter managers. National media wrote about this case (Source: DCNews article in Romanian language).

Together, we are a stronger voice and we can do something to change this desperate situation!

Please, speak up today for your voiceless friends!

Sign the petition to help ROLDA hold public shelters to account and free thousands of dogs from a life of grievous suffering.

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