The Silence of the Romanian Dogs A Romanian grandmother gets disrupted for only a few minutes. That was on September 2nd, 2013. Her older grandson comes running back without his 4 year old brother. “Grandma, grandma, the dogs have Ionut,” he screams in panic. Ionut is found later, his body mangled. “I don’t want to see dogs on the streets anymore!” the Romanian grandmother shouts in despair. Her plea for justice is answered by the president. The following day he takes immediate action by proposing a law to euthanise stray dogs. The law is passed by the Constitutional Court on September 25th allowing the capture and killing of dogs if not adopted within 14 days after being placed in a shelter. Last month I went to Romania to see it for myself. After the horror stories posted on social media I expected to see dogcatchers hunting dogs in broad daylight, scared Romanians hiding their pets at home, people kicking dogs and chiding me for feeding a stray. I encountered none of that. On the surface, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Even in shelters, no dogs herded into cramped rooms or beaten to death with hammers or clubs. No gassing of hundreds of dogs like in many high-kill shelters in the West. Notwithstanding, dogs are being killed, day by day, by this and that, here and there, and more often than not, slowly, in silence and agony. On the day I visited the public shelter in Ploiesti, a city 36 miles north from Bucharest that is the “prison” to over 1000 dogs, Aniela, the Romanian rescuer, was told by the shelter staff, aka the dogcatchers, that four dogs had died overnight. No explanation was offered for the deaths of those previously healthy dogs. They died because of this and that. The animal rescuers I met told me that they often hear about a dogcatcher’s hunt in town, but the dog never makes it to the shelter. When questioned, the dogcatchers don’t deny the chase as one might expect, but say that the dog simply managed to escape or ran away and was probably run over by a car. They die here and there. When the dogs do get to a public shelters, sterilisation is at times on the agenda. I was horrified to see the medical treatment that was deemed to be adequate. I saw the kennels where the dogs are placed after surgery: cold, dingy and wet cells. Some get ill, some lie in their faeces or wait on the urine-soaked concrete for their slow end. They die because of neglect. Not only that, but food is also scarce. Dogs of various sizes and temperament, huddled in small kennels, get injured while fighting over food and others just cave in and crawl into a corner. Cornelia, a dog rescuer in Rosiori, told me about an incident that happened in a shelter in February this year: “The dogcatchers put a dog in the den; he had been tranquilised during capture. In the den other dogs were craving food – he was defenceless and was eaten by the others, alive.” They die because of starvation. When I ask people in England whether they know about the recent developments in Romania, I usually hear: “No, I don’t, but aren’t dogs killed all over the world?” Yes, they are. Killing of stray dogs is indeed a global phenomenon. In Turkey, stray dogs often go missing, and mass graves of dead dogs, possibly poisoned, are discovered. In Iran, dogs confiscated from their guardians for being un-islamic, are starved to death in prisons. When Greece was preparing to embrace the world in the 2004 Olympics, packs of dead stray dogs were a common sight on the streets. Still, Romania’s case is different and distinct for various reasons. It is distinct because the methodical “killing” of the 3 million stray dogs resembles a holocaust as suggested by some animal activists. It is distinct as it makes organised “dog killing” legislative in an EU member state. Nationally, it has the potential for paving the road for further animal abuse and cruelty, and internationally, it sets an example for other EU countries to follow suit as we have already seen unfolding in Bosnia Herzegovina. “The European Union has little to say when it comes to companion animals,” Dan Jorgensen, the President of the European Parliament’s Intergroup on the Welfare of Animals admits in a letter addressed to the Romanian President Traian Basescu, on September 11th. The management of stray dogs is left to the member states. Still, Jorgensen warns the Romanian President that it would be shameful having to “admit that cruel mass slaughters of dogs can still happen in the European Union in the 21st century”. So far the Romanian President hasn’t responded to the concerns raised by the EP Intergroup. However, Mihai Atanasoaei, the prefect of Bucharest offered an answer in 2012 in an interview with the UK journalist Michael Bird: “Where else in Europe have you seen so many dogs on the street? Give me one city, one city in Europe. Because we are all Europeans. And if we are Europeans, let’s be European all the way.” Stray dogs have always been a common sight in Romania. Their number, however, has soared over the past years following the downfall of Ceausescu. Animal right campaigners attribute it to the absence of nationwide sterilisation initiatives. They criticise Romania for having declined offers by NGOs of neutering campaigns despite evidence from a study published by WHO (1981-1988) which supports the effectiveness of sterilisation in controlling the stray population. However, during an interview on the news channel B1TV on September 3rd, President Basescu argued that sterilisation had failed to deliver a quick solution and concluded that “humans must feel safe first”. Some British newspapers interpreted this statement as “humans are above dogs”. This may only be a loose translation, and yet, it goes without saying that most people believe men to be the noblest of all creatures, superior to all other beings. Similarly, the Treaty of Lisbon regards animals as a mere commodity; in fact, it only acknowledges them as “sentient beings” and hence, their “welfare requirements” have to be respected. The EP’s written declaration on dog population management in the EU recognises that in “some member states, stray animals pose a threat to public health and safety” and that “[they] are taking extreme measures against stray animals”. But it doesn’t do more than suggesting “anti-cruelty laws”, promoting sterilisation and “responsible pet ownership”. Jorgensen, in his letter to the Romanian President, pleads for “humane euthanasia” should Romania choose it, but in the same token he doubts that Romania has the resources to do so. With all the legal arguments exhausted, animal right activists see their hands tied. They are in outrage but patiently keep on holding protests and candle light vigils on the streets of Bucharest, Dusseldorf, Stuttgart, Zurich and New York. Social media are flooded by petitions and pledges.Charities across Europe as well as North America, from the big names to the small ones, are struggling to rescue as many dogs as possible. They donate food and funds to Romanian animal rescuers who care for the dogs in public shelters. Some dogs are lucky and are taken into private shelters which help to put them up for adoption to homes in EU countries – a place where dogs are not regarded a threat. Brownie, a stray dog in Ploiesti, had the chance to do exactly that 3 months ago. She had a home in Germany awaiting her; but then, just a week before her transport, she was badly injured in a fight. Half of the skin on her back was torn and ripped off. Already a tripod; but no one knows the story of her missing leg. Was she born without it or was it tragically lost? She can’t tell us. We don’t understand. On the plane back to the UK, an elderly English lady showed me her holiday pictures. When asked about my trip, I recounted my “dog” stories. She replied: “It sounds just like those Romanian orphans we saw on TV after that dictator. The kids were lying in their own shit, shaking their bodies. It was too disturbing to watch that kind of misery.”
Posted on: Sun, 01 Dec 2013 21:44:21 +0000
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