Wild habitat for Romanian dogs

Building prison kennels is not what ROLDA intend for the dogs.

UPDATE: During 2012 we raised the funds to buy the first hectare (2 acres) of land. As soon as we can raise a total that will enable us to cover the cost of 10 hectares, we can move the first dogs back into the wild, where they will live a “controlled freedom”, provided with veterinary checks (vaccines, parasites control, etc) and good food placed in “food stations”.

 

Different levels of Tickets for Freedom. Choose One here

 

Working with our lawyer, we will sign an agreement with every donor that will purchase for us one or more acres of land. Although foreign people can’t own a property in Romania, we are happy to sign papers that will forbid the charity to use the land in other purpose or sell it. The sole purpose of this wild environment will be to complete the needs of a category of dogs that have no chance to enjoy a good life into a shelter, regardless how modern facilities this shelter includes.

 

 

Our goal is to rescue the street dogs, sterilize and rehome them all. Unfortunately there are not only white and black colours in this cruel World in which we are living: street dogs are abused, some aggressive dogs bite innocent people, companies take inhumane methods (killing) if dogs don’t disappear somehow from their property.

On the other hand, street dogs are not all easy adoptable (most of them are, but what about the rest?) some takes years to build confidence, some never trust. How to rescue all, which are the priorities, where to shelter them all?

Some dogs catch from the streets and kept longer in kennels change behavior, some refuse to eat, some became sad and loose hope, waiting to die in prison. There are not solutions to all these in one single approach, this is why ROLDA wants to create facilities to offer more solutions to general strays problems from Romania.

An adoption center to rehabilitate and rehome dogs. A big dogs shelter to humanely solve the strays problem at the steel plant. And now, our new goal is to provide a safe, natural environment to un-adoptable dogs, where they will live free for the rest of their lives.

This is the official logo of this ambitious project, created by our friend Alina:

 

SKINNY, SEMI-WLID DOGS CATCHED BY ROLDA IN GALATI AREA

Except for isolated situations, ROLDA catch and shelter semi-wild dogs from the steel company located outside the city. The “isolated situations” appears when locals specifically ask assistance, when an old person has more dogs and have no resources to feed them, when a paralyzed dog needs medical care and advertising to be rehomed, when a number of puppies are about to be dump on the streets if we don’t pick them up.

The highest percent (over 90%) is represented by semi-wild dogs which migrates from the city (where City Hall or anyone else doesn’t do anything to control the overpopulation and despite our efforts to sterilize homeless dogs, the results still don’t see and financial situation prevent us to speed the sterilization program).

There are also situations when dogs from neighbor-cities are transported during the night by vans or even big trucks unloaded at the gate of the steel plant, from where people know we’ll take them into the shelter.

Local industrial companies also abandons dogs at the edge of the city and because lack of food resource, dogs migrates to the steel plant, where workers gave them rests of meals on occasion.

 

WHAT HAPPENS AFTER SEMI-WILD DOGS BEING CATCHED?

Dogs in the industrial part of the city suffer anemia, skin problems, soon after we rescue them - some dogs develop cancer, kidney malfunctions; bones and articulations serious problems which requires long medical care.
Puppies rescue in these industrial areas are only skin and bones, they don’t grow normally and have deficiencies which affect them for the rest of their lives. Some needs IV treatment to survive, some perfusions with vitamins and rehidratation.

After being catch, all our dogs are tested against distemper. If they pass the test, the dogs from the steel plant are sterilized and sheltered into kennels which the steel company built /sponsored.
Between these dogs, ROLDA staff selects the very friendly, sociable dogs and transport them to the small shelter (which is built and maintained/administrated from private donations coming from our supporters) where they are evaluated to fit in different adoptive families. Photos are taken and dogs selected are advertised on the website.

At the small shelter, the adoption rate is 100%!

WHAT HAPPENS WITH WILD DOGS WHICH NEVER GETS A HOME?

Knowing that REHOMING is the only chance to save the street dogs from being either imprisoned in a kennel or being exposed to dangers when “surviving” on the streets, ROLDA staff puts a lot of time, financial resources and efforts to give the friendly dogs a chance “to go”, even if this means flying dogs by cargo to countries like Norway.
For us, saving a dog life and especially seeing the dog “leaving to a home” is priceless.

Rehabilitating dogs is part of our work especially after the steel plant built for us the shelter and we got in touch with so many semi wild dogs that must learn to accept the leash, to let people pet them or at least to stay closer to a person and not run away.

Some very frightened dogs are “home” now in USA, UK, Holland or Norway because our hard works but mostly because kind families that give these dogs the chance they needed to become a real “pet” instead of a chased, wild, nameless animal on Romanian streets.

As you can imagine, some of the “semi-tamed” dogs don’t have the chance to ever be rehomed. The hard life they endured on the streets marked them irreparable.
In the past years, it became harder to accept for myself or to explain the volunteers why some of the “unadoptable” dogs remain the rest of their lives in kennels.
The rational explanation is because Romanians refuse to adopt from shelters, preferring to buy pure breed dogs instead, which multiply and puppies are dump on the streets, so the cycle to continue.

Thinking constantly of the dogs which can’t enjoy a free life, the way they born and live it before being catched – one idea came in my mind. I’ve heard about a private project in Romania and somewhere in Turkey as well and I think this will work for the “non-adoptable dogs”.

 

WILD HABITAT (NATURAL SHELTER) FOR SEMI-TAMED DOGS

ROLDA plans to purchase a big piece of land, about 40ha of forest and pasture, hopefully with a natural source of water. After being fenced and secured, this forest shelter will become the forever home for  the dogs which cannot be rehomed for various reasons, and here they will enjoy freedom, living in controlled packs, supervised by caretakers and a vet technician.

All the dogs will be sterilized prior to be released in the natural shelter and micro chipped, they will be sharing inexpensive wood houses and few workers will clean area, give the dogs food in the exact same location, and water constantly.

According to people who already tried this concept of “natural shelter”: viruses such as kennel cough, distemper and parvo do not occur in a natural, open environment. If the dogs are well-fed with a high protein and fat diet they do not suffer from cold and positively thrive in snow.

The start-up cost will be high, but the administrative costs prove to be much smaller than the monthly costs for a shelter with kennels facilities. The project was already tested and functional in countries like Turkey, we also have in Romania a similar project in Bihor area created by Robert Smith.
Every hectare of land/forest costs about 3000 EUR.

We need your help to purchase in total a lot of 40ha where we can build a humane alternative to senior dogs, shy or not friendly, not rehabilitated dogs. The second step will be to fence around the property.

The “imprisoned “dogs' freedom and good quality of life will worth all the efforts and sacrifices that we do now.

 

 

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