Sterilization Campaign for Romanian street dogs

With a small donation you can make their future a safer one!

With no help from the local authorities and against the difficult conditions, ROLDA efforts are made to reduce the number of homeless animals born to suffer on the streets (abused, starving, sick, often being brutally killed). Working with VETI-MED, Andrei Vet Med and FPCC vets, we provide sterilizations to dogs saved by our team from the industrial area, at the outskirt of Galati or its suburbs, Smardan village. Starting 2013, in collaboration with our sponsor, AMG – we started sterilization and return program, releasing back in the territory dogs sterilized, identified, micro-chipped and vaccinated.

During 2012, 435 dogs have been sterilized while in the first 6 months of 2013, 426 dogs were stopped multiplying their sufferance on the streets of Romania.
When funds permit, ROLDA covers the sterilization costs for strays brought by local animal lovers (strays feed by these kind people on a regular base) and pets owned by people with low-income.

Read Cara’s and her babies story. TOGETHER, we can prevent tragedies like this one to happen in the future. Sterilization is the only humane solution to control and reduce, in time, street animals overpopulation. These animals suffered already so much, so unfairly.

Please click here to scroll down and support our sterilization campaign in Romania!

or Read about Cara’s Story!

Cara always turns more to the left to look straight into your eyes.

Looking straight into your eyes is her way to keep a closer eye on you, just in case, until she figures out if you are a good person or not. A nd the saying “keep an eye on you” is describing the reality in Cara’s case, as she has only one eye.

Cara may have learned what really means to be a mom the moment she felt her babies inside her belly, or maybe later, when she was searching and searching for the best hiding place to give birth, away from people and other dogs’ possible attacks. She felt what means to be a mom when she sniffed and kissed her two babies for the first time, the joy of seeing them happy and relaxed, sleeping under her protective body, and the mixed feelings of pride, happiness, and worry she must have had when they started to walk and move away from her, every day a bit more, exploring.

But before long Cara suffered two of the most painful moments of her life. She had gone out to scavenge garbage or hunt rats very early that morning, to be back “home” in time before the puppies whimpered to be fed.

Street dogs in Romania must forage along the roadsides and in garbage heaps to make a living. Their food may be the remains of roadkilled wildlife, or leftovers found in plastic lunch bags, whatever rodents they can catch, or even the leather sides of discarded shoes

Cara had hidden her puppies among the bushes near the railway spur that connects the main Galati train station with the steel plant station. Returning to the spot on this morning, she felt increasing worry which turned into panic when she couldn’t smell, feel, or see her babies anywhere. She sniffed the spot where she left her babies sleeping peacefully. Then she began running in circles, larger each time, until she found her babies suffocated in a plastic bag.

Probably they tried to escape from the bag until the last moment. But they were too young and too small to succeed. Cara felt the pain that every mother would feel, mixing emptiness, sadness, and rage against the killer.

Cara started back toward her hidden spot. Then she realized there was no reason to go there. She looked at her puppies one more time and with their smell still fresh in the nose, she started to search for the human who killed them. She did not realize their remains had been left as bait for her.

She sniffed the ground, climbed, and ran across the junk-strewn field, cutting her paws on sharp metal. She ran toward the exterminator with a rifle who was trying to sight in on her to shoot her, but she saw only her innocent babies dead.

Hearing a whizzing, she turned quickly, surprised. Immediately she felt like sand in her right eye. Than something on her cheek. She tried to keep running and only then found that she could not see straight. Everything happened in a few seconds. When she stopped, the pain in her right eye increased. Soon, it became excruciating, but it was different kind of pain from the pain she felt at finding her puppies dead.

The man who killed the puppies and shot Cara apparently thought he had killed her, too. He left..

But Cara survived to cry in her own language and, more loudly, from her wounded heart. This is how our rescue team found Cara few days later. Workers from a nearby industrial site called us about a dog who cried day and night.

Wounded strays usually hide, to protect themselves from being exposed to further injury, but Cara seemed to no longer care if she lived or died.

Cara will never have puppies again. Thanks to our compassionate supporters, we sterilized her. This cost about 20 euros, $26 in U.S. money.Vaccinating her cost about five euros more.

The scar where Cara lost her eye heals more every day. Her injury will always be visible. Still, she can handle herself perfectly. She is a good candidate for adoption by someone who does not insist on having a perfect-looking dog. She is sensible and grateful, and in a way,she does look perfect, with a beauty that is in how you look at her.

Cara’s emotional scars have been by far the most difficult to treat, to anticipate and to handle, day after day.

There are days in Cara’s life when she is not happy and smiling, even if she is now away from dangers, treated with respect and gentleness, and maybe, thanks to you, going to a caring home. There will be moments when she will hear or smell other dogs’ puppies and her remaining eye will cry her heart’s sadness. She cannot speak to tell to everyone her story, but are we strong enough to listen to stories like hers, day after day?

I was nervous when Cara met a stranger at the shelter for the first time. She proved to be just the dog who turns more to the left to keep an eye on you. This is how she can judge best if you are a good person. Cara turns to see your good side.

Our mission is to save every dog in need of assistance and treat him with respect and responsibility. We carry great respect and admiration for animals and care for them deeply. We want to solve the overpopulation of stray dogs’ problem in a responsible and efficient way. Through our care for the animal provided by dedicated staff, within modern shelter facilities, we wish to set an example and influence the general mentality in Romania. We hope to inspire others to do the same.

We invest in western type shelters which respect health and safety EU standards. We are proud that we manage to constantly keep more than 600 dogs healthy and happy, but sad that we cannot do much more at the moment. Our main priority is the quality of life of each dog we care versus aiming to take a large number of dogs off the streets only to treat them worse. We try to offer safety, shelter and medical attention to each dog we receive (or rescue) in order to provide both physical and emotional comfort.

In short, our mission is to make dogs happy and help them live safe!

Informing periodically the public about the real situation of the stray dogs in Romania and by setting an example, we managed to raise donations and receive help. We’ve built two modern shelters where about 600 dogs are cared for daily, in full safety and hygienic conditions. We are not going to stop here.

While we are proud of our efforts, we aim much higher. There are thousands of stray dogs out there and our goal is to provide an excellent home for most of them, if not all. Our end purpose is saving and helping all the dogs in Romania and on a short term, all the dogs around the Galati area.

Apart from taking dogs from the streets, our goal is to provide excellent caring service for each dog. We don’t believe in half measures. Good food, a safe and healthy shelter, security and veterinary aid are what every dog deserves and we are striving to offer that on a constant basis.

In the coming years, our objectives are to open a wild habitat where dogs that can’t be placed into new homes will enjoy a “controlled” freedom, to repair the cottage where volunteers from all over the World are welcomed and transform the small shelter into a “green facility”, to build a running space for the dogs and extend our sterilization campaign in order to prevent hundreds of unwanted new dogs to suffer on the streets

Most of the donations we receive are invested in the direct care of dogs inside our establishments and placing them in loving families around the world. Caring for the dogs means constantly solving the problems that appear and that oftentimes involves, besides financial resources, a lot of time and effort from the ROLDA team, like digging actual tunnels in the snow in order to reach the kennels during the harsh winter months (-20 degrees C). With the help of our supporters we managed to provide warm blankets (or straws) on bedding for the dogs. We also finished one brand new paddock, fully insulated, just before the winter came.

During the first 6 months of 2013 we managed to save 447 frightened,sick, starving street dogs, some of them are already adopted and live in healthy, happy homes in UK and Holland.

We had a few sterilization campaigns in Galati and Smardan areas. From June to late November we worked to reallocate 4 paddocks from the large shelter. We dealt with several problems during the summer like increases in food prices and wells draining fast due to the heat. These problems were universal so more and more animals were abandoned and we took in as many as we could.

We managed to attract some new volunteers to build our team stronger and the founder, Dana, is writing a book about her life experiences, dogs and our NGO.

ROLDA is a Romanian NGO which built in less than 10 years two of the best dogs shelters from Romania (see pictures here). We are sometimes sponsored and helped by companies like AMG, Cukys, DAMEN, Derpan, Metro, Vitakrat and many others. ROLDA has the financial records published on the Ministry of Finance website and it is legally registered as an NGO, CUI: 18416340

Our annual financial statements are public and you can see them here.

Just in the past year ROLDA was featured in the Magazine Dyrebeskyttelsen Norge, Me and My Dog lifestyle magazine for dog owners in Holland. Realitatea TV, one of the most important news TV channels in Romania visited us on 4 April – the World Animal Day. We were also visited by a team of journalists from NRK TV, the National TV station from Norway. Our shelters are constantly visited by government and local officials, also by international volunteers. ROLDA has official registered branches in Norway and USA and active representatives in Holland and UK.

ROLDA received The “Award of excellence” from Zonta Club, Galati.

If you have any questions about our activity please contact us.

The Museum of Dogs Romania will collect; preserve and exhibit dog related objects of art, rare vintage, collectibles pieces.

Please consider donate yourself an object to the Museum of Dog Romania: An antique, a paint, a sculpture, an old movie poster, autographed book, dogs figurines collection or a more personal object like a dog diploma, a certificate, a medal, a DVD’s or old dog movies…

You will instantly help the dogs. Your donated object will remain to be admired by others contributors to our rescue work in Romania. Let’s not forget the reason why this museum was created: to educate the Romanian community about respecting animals and put the right value on what “dog” means for other people, in different parts of the Planet, in different cultures.

All the security measures will be taken to provide the maximum safety to the donated objects.

As an exception, we accept valuable objects that are not strictly related to dogs, but with animals, in general. Please include the certificate of authenticity, when available, for insurance purpose.

Please note that the shipping costs are the responsibility of the donor. An international agreement will be signed with the object donor to clarify that the object becomes ROLDA possession, but it will not be sold or given away without the donor consent.

Please email us if you have an object or a whole collection to donate to Museum of Dog Romania!

Please support our sterilization campaign in Romania!

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