I rescued my first Romanian dog in 2012.
This is how it happened.
I was looking for a dog from local rescue centres in the UK but at that time our local council and other kennels were bursting at the seams with quite large and problematic dogs. I didn’t feel that I could find the right match for my very lovely but temperamental ‘border terrorist’ cross female. I had exhausted all options within hundreds of miles in the UK, when I accidentally came across an article about the crisis of stray dogs in Romania and the horrific culls that had been taking place. I was shocked by this, I had no idea that this was happening in Europe and felt compelled to do something to help. I came across ‘Hope for Romanian Strays’ and was amazed by what one woman was trying to do with very few resources at that time, in a country with some significant problems with poverty and deprivation.
I wasn’t on Facebook myself, but soon realised that this was a vital tool in communicating across Europe and the rest of the world, to raise awareness of the serious, often vile and stomach churning abuse and killing of animals. I could not turn a blind eye to this and the only thing I could possibly think to do was to rescue at least one dog from this terrible situation. This took me on the most amazing journey, led me to a great friendship and contact with many other lovely ‘doggie people’ in Europe. I wasn’t aware of the adoption or transport process for a dog from another country and wrongly thought that this would cost a fortune and that the dog would have to endure six months in a quarantine facility. I was wrong about all of that.
The process was very simple, cost no more than adopting from a local centre and significantly less than the cost of a pedigree or ‘farmed’ puppy. (More about that later!).
I hope that this blog will help others and guide you through the process of dog adoption from Hope for Romanian Strays.
I hope it helps you to find your true doggie love! I have now rescued five dogs (Hector-pie, Stumpy, MooMoo, Teddy and Milo-potato). I will be telling you more about this in the coming weeks.
Next week I will be talking more about why we should all rescue a dog from Hope for Romanian Strays. This is a question people ask me a lot. “Why did you rescue from Romania when we have so many strays here”? It is a fair question and I will tell you all about ‘Hector-pie’ the most gentle, friendly, ice cream van obsessed, singing, loyal and lovely boy.
Bye for now.
Hope for Romanian Strays 