The first 20 dogs have been carried inside the enclosure. Within tomorrow, if they won’t be adopted, they will be killed with unknown methods. The City Hall hasn’t even prepared an adoption form in case somebody wants to request a dog. We are trying to rescue these 20 dogs, while monday morning we will denounce the City Hall and Sanitary Offices for not respecting law 227/02. The dogs have no water and no food; they have been transported with an old tractor which does not fulfill the law requirements. STD will immediatley contact Romanian media in case the killings will start with the pretext of the sick fox. However there is nor an’ official warning neither any quarantine measure applied, which would be mandatory in any case of rabies infection.

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Last Saturday we went back to the Sufletel kennel with two volunteers of the Swedish “Hundhjalpen” association. The effects of our mange treatment are still visible, as we found the dogs in fairly good conditions. Only the weaker animals have suffered a relapse. Unfortunately, we saw that at least 40 new animals have been taken in, in spite of our requests not to increase the number of guests. One of these, a 4-month-old female puppy, was immediately transferred to Cernavoda due to its critical conditions (see photo). On the way back, we picked up another small-size female dog. After promising a small donation, we obtained from the Sufletel manager to come back with our mobile clinic over the next few days to spay several pregnant dogs hosted by the kennel. The chairman of Save the Dogs hopes to be able to be given other 2 dogs particularly in need of medical care. The appointment has been scheduled for Tuesday, January, 23rd. On Wednesday, January, 24th, Sara Turetta will meet Mr. Nicolae Dragu, the Mayor of Calarasi, to discuss the neuter-and-release project proposed to the town council. Meanwhile, dog catchers seem to have intensively resumed catches and killings.

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Two weeks after we left the Sufletel kennel, the manager contacted us again. Today we are going to sign an agreement whereby the staff of our mobile clinic will be able to take health-related and medical decisions but will not be able to choose which dogs to give out for adoption. In the meantime we had an official meeting with the Vice Director of the Municipal Veterinary Service and with the Mayor. We had a warm welcome yesterday. Despite this was a first approach to the issue of stray dogs, the Mayor stated his willingness to cooperate with us and start a spaying and neutering programme in the city in 2007. Unfortunately, while our representatives were meeting the Mayor, the dog catchers were at work. We will put every effort into stopping this and dog killings until an agreement is signed. We know that negotiations with the Municipal authorities may take up to 2-3 months but we will keep you posted. We are confident that Calarasi will become the third city in the Dobrogea region that will stop — thanks to our intervention — dog killings.

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After 2 ’½ months of great efforts at the Sufletel kennel in Calarasi, we regret having to take a step backward.

While last Friday (Oct. 27) one of our collaborators was about to catch with a tranquilizing gun a pregnant female dog (which was also affected with tumour) wandering around the kennel, Mr. V.T., Chairman of Sufletel, physically attacked him and started a fight that required the help of all our staff there to end. This wholly unmotivated aggression is just the latest in a row of unpleasant episodes that showed how unstable and unreliable this person is: back in August Mr. V.T. had contacted us asking for the help of the mobile clinic and today he does not want our staff to sterilize the poor animals hosted in the kennel and insistently (yet, to no avail!) keeps asking for money.

Furthermore, after the first 2 adoptions of small-size dogs (in the pictures shot by Pup in Nood in The Netherlands), Mr. V.T. refused to give to Save the Dogs other animals for which we had received adoption requests from Italy.

On Friday, before the aggression, our collaborator had delivered 300 kg of pet food and was about to start the usual therapies which have already proven successful. Unfortunately, and with much regret, we will temporarily have to put an end to our visits, while waiting for the expulsion of this association from the kennel and our taking-over its management. We’d like to open a third sterilization centre there. So far, our pleas to the local authorities have been ignored, while in a few days we will have a meeting with the so-called Veterinary Service to negotiate the cancellation of the licence granted to Sufletel under the terms of the law. Despite Save the Dogs have found new animal-loving collaborators who wished to help in the kennel, Mr. V.T.’s attitude prevented them from being employed. We are currently contemplating a diplomatic action and a European campaign to put an end to this painful situation.

We’ll keep you posted. Hopefully, with good news.

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