The Plight of Dogs in Romania – and How to Help Them
In Romania, over 600,000 dogs and thousands of cats live on the streets. That’s more than in any other European country.
The nation’s homeless-animal crisis is miserable for these dogs and cats, who spend their lives without a guardian to care for them, let alone a warm, comfortable place to curl up at night. Many dogs suffer and die on the streets or meet their end after being captured by dog-catchers and taken to – which is legal under Romanian law.
Often, dogs die in the shelters, where they’re often not provided with appropriate food, sufficient space, or protection from the cold. The majority of them aren’t spayed or neutered, which means they keep reproducing as long as they’re alive.
The simplest and most effective way to spare dogs and cats this suffering is to prevent more unwanted animals from being born by undertaking spay-and-neuter projects.
Every time an animal is sterilised, this prevents potentially hundreds of thousands more from being born. One female dog and her offspring can produce 67,000 puppies in just six years. In seven years, one female cat and her offspring can produce a staggering 370,000 kittens!
By taking its mobile spay-and-neuter clinics around Romania, PETA Germany – along with its local partner Eduxanima – are sterilising and registering about 4,000 animals each year. The groups focus on rural and poor areas – where both dogs with guardians and homeless dogs are spayed and neutered, registered, and given other veterinary treatment free of charge.
PETA Germany provides dogs whose owners make them live outdoors with long tethers to replace short, heavy chains as well as new doghouses to make their lives more comfortable.
The group also runs animal-care workshops in Romanian schools. These sessions help young people learn about the importance of compassion and empathy towards all living beings – because giving the next generation an understanding of animal rights can create a brighter future for animals in Romania and around the world.
To establish this project in even more areas of Romania, PETA Germany is working closely with local mayors and other politicians to raise awareness of the laws on animal sterilisation and registration and to ensure this legislation is to improve the lives of animals.
What You Can Do
Please sign our petition calling on the Romanian authorities to end the killing of homeless dogs immediately.
If you’re able to, please also support this crucial project by making an urgently needed donation to PETA’s Global Compassion Fund to enable PETA Germany to expand its spay-and-neuter project in Romania even further and help other animals around the world.
