1) ROMANIAN / ROMMIE RESCUE DOGS: Understanding the Root Cause of Romania’s Stray Dog Challenges.

To truly understand the remarkable Romanian rescue dog, it is first necessary to understand their history.

Nicolae Ceaușescu's presidency of Romania commenced from 1974 until 1989. His reign was significant to the dogs' history because the steps he took to industrialise & modernise Romania, whilst attempting to clear the country's debts, greatly impacted their very existence.

As a direct result of Ceaușescu's new policies, people were forced to live in small city apartments, sometimes having to endure very cramped conditions with multiple family occupancy. Most of these apartments did not allow pets, & this meant that the poor pet dogs & cats were abandoned on the streets - most were not spay or neutered.

We know from the Dog Pyramid diagram that in just six years, an unspayed female dog, her mate, & all of their resultant offspring can add up to around 67,000 dogs. So it's not hard to see how the population of dogs, indeed the stray free-breeding dog population, has become so out of control in Romania; particularly as they've been left to breed unchecked.

This is why spaying & neutering programmes are so valuable. Such programmes offer the most humane, cost-effective, & efficient strategy for dealing with the issue longterm.

A slight but necessary digression in this discussion.

The most obvious repercussion of the large & ever growing stray dog population is that the dogs roam around in packs, most often harmless, but the enormity of numbers has become something to fear. Violence & abuse towards this perceived 'vermin', has become common place; where a dog's mere existence poses a threat, as they struggle to survive without any human love or care, or access to any decent or reliable food sources.

The Romanian Government reacted by rounding up such dogs & culling them periodically, at a cost to the tax payer - which only heightened public tensions & perceptions.

So, for the last 20 years or so, these dogs have endured predatory style captures & slaughter, in the most horrific, inhumane, & painful ways imaginable; as the most humane methods of euthanasia are vastly more expensive compared. (As a side note, ironically, it is cheaper to spay & neuter dogs than to humanely euthanise them).

The stray dog issue escalated significantly in 2013, when a young boy was sadly mauled to death in Bucharest, on private land, by a pack of dogs (it later transpired that these dogs were not in fact strays). This created a media moral panic, which was supported by the Government; & a new Law was passed allowing the killing of all dogs after 14 days of their capture, unless the relevant local Governments had the funding to keep the dogs for longer.

As a result of all of this, the streets became a free-for-all for freelance dog catchers, who profitted from the capture of the dogs, by any means necessary, & general abuse of the strays escalated as tensions rose.

Today, the Laws in Romania still encourage the capture & killing of the stray dogs en masse, with vast profits to be made by dog catchers & the government alike.

The public shelters for dogs are very different places in Romania. The dogs are often left to survive in cramped & inhumane conditions. They are often left untreated for disease &/or injury, & are often left with little or no food. There is no care in most of these places, only mistreatment, & the dogs are often left to fight over the few resources available to them - some fight to the death. Sadly, the methods of culling, in these places, are often done via the cheapest means possible, which often sadly means via the least humane methods.

This is why rescuers rescue dogs both off the streets, as well as from public shelters; neither are safe or happy places for the dogs.

There are many private rescue shelters in Romania who provide a safer place for dogs after rescue - whilst the rescuer (many who are UK based) seeks to rehome these dogs. These shelters are big business but are a necessary stepping stone between forever homes & the volatility of street or public shelter living.

This is why you will find so many Romanian dog charities & non-profits operating in the UK today.

🐶 Thank you for stopping by. 😊 Please remember to pop back for more or subscribe & we will notify you when new articles are published.

We endeavour to produce a new blog article every month. As you can tell, we like to be as thorough as possible. 😉

🐶 We hope you are finding our website both informative & useful, & we hope you are enjoying reading 📚 our blog articles as much as we enjoy writing  ✍️  them. 

Our website is completely free for anyone to view & access. 🥰 However, it is not free for us to run, unfortunately.

Should you like to send us a little gift to express your gratitude, then we would gratefully receive it towards the costs associated with running our website. 🤩 

You can send us £1, a few pounds, or however much you would like to give, to our PayPal account here:

patchwork.paws@aol.com 

If you see us as 'friends & family,' please do feel free to select this option.

📣 Another way to support us is via our affiliate link to the following online courses & webinars (which you can study anytime, at your own pace)...

Here is our unique link to 'The Dogs Point of View' website:

https://www.thedogspointofview.com/?affiliate=nqTHUx

These reasonably priced courses & webinars start from just £25 (& some are even FREE, no catch 😱🥰) & are specifically tailored towards Romanian & Overseas rescue dogs, however some of these courses might also prove useful & relevant for U.K. rescue dogs too, so well worth a look.

You can even join the training & support group where you will be able to access ALL online courses & webinars for FREE, 100's of step-by-step teaching guides, progressive training plans, optional weekly zoom calls, & get qualified trainer support & advice whenever you need it for as little as £27 per month! 😃

Some topics covered include: 

🐶 fearfulness & social shyness, 

🐶 prey drive, 

🐶 building calmness & confidence, 

🐶 techniques to rebalance & calm,

🐶 reactivity on walks, 

🐶 reactivity with visitors, 

🐶 the quirky nature of Romanian dogs, 

🐶 how to set yourself up for a successful adoption.

The course & webinar content has been carefully constructed by Meesh Masters, who is an Holistic Canine Behaviour Consultant specialising in working with Romanian & Overseas rescue dogs. 'The Dogs Point of View' is committed to following the latest scientifically proven fear free methods.

Thank you so much for being here & for supporting Patchwork Paws U.K. 🐶

We always welcome your feedback, so please feel free to leave us a comment or email us. 🥰

📣 Please remember to always choose no harm, fear free, force free & non-aversive training methods based on mutual respect, trust & positive reinforcement. Please always consider that a behaviour that YOU might find undesirable might be quite normal behaviour to your dog, the behaviour might be motivated by a past trauma/fear, or it might be motivated by your dog's emotional response to something. Always treat your dog with love, patience, empathy, understanding & kindness - even if they do have toileting accidents or if they chew your favourite slippers. 📣🙏

📍 The dog behaviour & training world is largely unregulated here in the U.K. & not all are equal. Please do your homework & always choose a behaviourist or trainer carefully. Look at the methods of training they use & the stance they choose to adopt. Always check their qualifications, accreditations & references/feedback carefully. 📍

Pictured is our late & great Lily who suffered with severe Epilepsy. Lily was rescued from a public shelter in Romania. 🙏💕