Great agitation at Calarasi, where last week our activities finally got under way. On 29th February Luca Molteni and Alessandra Rosatelli, the vet volunteers who inaugurated the programme of free sterilisations at home, arrived in the town, and the event was shown on Rai2 and La7, thanks to Emilio Nessi; the sterilisation programme was warmly welcomed by some of the town’s inhabitants.

Works have also begun on the ex-kennels of Sufletel and medical treatment has been started for the dogs living in the structure. Balance of the vets’ work for the week: 42 sterilisations in the mobile clinic in the town, 120 dogs from the kennels dewormed and treated against external parasites, 60 dogs vaccinated.

In the meantime we have chosen 4 workmen, 2 veterinary technicians and a coordinator, and they have already produced a large gate with a fence (about 50 metres) to protect the area and give it a boundary. The French company Saint Gobain, directed by an Italian, has offered to donate 2 containers which will house the office and the operating theatre, in exchange for the sterilisation of the stray dogs in its area. The capture of the dogs has already started and the intervention around the factory is almost finished: We will keep you up to date on the progress of the project, which will be extremely difficult for a variety of reasons: the size of the town and the huge number of strays, the lack of cooperation with the local authorities and the absence of a full-time vet.

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Despite the long presence of our mobile clinic in Calarasi, STD quarrelled for more than a year and a half with the “vision” of the local association that managed the shelter. Therefore, until the 4th February it hadn’t been possible to stop the flow of dogs entering, register all of the animals nor spay and neuter those strays left to go free around the structure. Finally. After the siging in front of a notary public on the 4th of February, the 5,000 square meters of space, once the Sufletel shelter, was transferred officially to STD.
We are happy but also frightened by this new, great task for a variety of reasons:
 The shelter is in disastrous condition and it will take at least two months to improve the living conditions of the dogs present (around 350);
 We need to make a series of urgent and immediate purchases that will allow the new team, currently being chosen, to work in an acceptable situation;
 In a few months the agreement we made with the City’s government (negotiated by STD) will expire and there is always the risk that our Association will be forced off the land in order to make use of it for other purposes;
 In the city the dog-catchers continue at intervals to capture and put down the strays: managing a shelter without a spay/neutering and release plan is a very difficult task because animal lovers, trying to save the strays, tend to throw dozens and dozens of dogs into the shelter without thinking about the overflow situation and the sanitary problems it causes. We hope that this doesn’t happen because it would be a disaster.
Despite these questions marks, we have decided to take the risk, aware of the fact that without us the 350 dogs in this shelter would have faced a doomed destiny. If we are able to find the funds, in addition to transforming the ex-Sufletel shelter into a welcoming and liveable place, we will be able to spay/neuter on-site thousands of animals that fuel the city’s stray problem. If we can’t find funding, we’ll need to be satisfied with simply taking care of the current animals at the shelter in the hope that the authorities will soon decide to collaborate and make an agreement to co-finance the project.
In the meantime, there are a series of essential purchases to make: the purchase of three containers, 1 operating room, 1 office for the director and the sanitary director, and 1 storage room/dressing room. The three containers cost between 5,000 and 8,000 euros each depending on their fittings and dimensions. Ducthypuppy and Dogsadoption Nederland have offered to contribute 10,000 euros (5,000 each) and the company Fiori di Luce has donated 2,000 euros to be used for the same purpose. While we wait for the purchase, our mobile camper/clinic will be brought to Calarassi so that our staff can begin working.
• A van in order to transport injured animals, food and all that is necessary for the shelter. The Opel Combo in Cernavoda (donated by Mario Chinea) will be moved to Calarssi. It will be necessary then to purchase a new van for Cernavoda for those in charge of capturing. Estimated cost: 11,000 euros.
• Personnel: The project’s director and the veterinarian have been chosen. We still need to find a nurse and at least 3 workers who will take care of the dogs at the shelter. We are currently making selections. The monthly cost of the personnel will be around 2,000 euros.
• Outdoor Kitchen: The current sanitary conditions are prohibitive and it will be necessary to create an adequate space in which to cook what we receive from supermarkets and factories and purchase wood or gas cylinders in order to cook the food. Of course we’ll need to complement the animals’ diet with feed, especially for the puppies. Dutchypuppy and Dogsadoption Nederland will soon give us 8 tons of feed to divide between Cernavoda and Calarasi and that will cover 2 months of our food requirements.
• Medical/Sanitary Materials: The operations office in Milan is packing the first materials destined for Calarasi but in the coming weeks we will intensify our search for drugs and suturing threads of which in this period there is a great shortage.
• Within the next two months we hope to put the structure back on its feet, clean the heaps of trash and the remains of the animals abandoned at the margins of the shelter, disinfect the pens and vaccinate and spay/neuter all the animals. After this we will be able to begin to implement an adoption plan with our partner associations and open up to the territory where the problems are immense and the urgencies are numerous. In the meantime, we hope to receive the support of foreign companies present in the area (Tenaris, Saint Gobain, Siad).
In this section of the website, you’ll be able to follow, step by step, the progress made on this third project in a city that has only 77,000 residents and (probably) more than 5,000 strays.

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