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2018 Autumn Winter Neuter Campaigns UPDATE

Our Happy Stitches campaign in Jilava County has neutered 319 cats and dogs. This is a street by street community campaign with the Mayor’s approval, targeting a growing area in Jilava County.

Our Iasi cat neuter campaign is still running, with the backing of the Mayor – into its 4th month and we had spayed 270 cats by the end of December, with many more still to do. This is a campaign for any owned or stray cat: kittens being born unwanted is a huge problem in Romania.

Happy Stitches Timisoara County started in September, for cats and dogs, owned and stray, within weeks, we have neutered over 140 animals – the area is in desperate need of help.

Our newest Happy Stitches campaign in Cluj – Napoca has just started, and will continue to run as long as we can – until it becomes too cold to neuter, the winters dropping below -20C.

These campaigns alone have already neutered 595 animals, and there is no reason why this will not reach 1,000 animals.

With previous campaigns in Constanta (300 animals), Bucharest (500 animals) and Baia Mare (580 animals), we have neutered 1,975 animals in 2018 alone.

A huge leap forwards from our previous campaigns over the past years, as our 2018 campaign focused on preventing unwanted strays being born. In total, so far up to the end of 2018, we have neutered over 5,050 dogs and cats in Romania.

If statistics on the internet are true, and each animal in 6 years is responsible for 67,000 pups or kittens being born, then over the past year, we have already prevented 338 million strays being born.

A huge achievement for Paws2Rescue and a huge testament to the commitment of them and their supporters to tackling the root cause of the stray dog problem in Romania.

Our current Neuter Campaigns 2019

CAMPAIGN 1: Cluj-napoca

The campaign started well, a slow and steady one, with a break in the winter, and by the end of January 2019, a total of 77 dogs and cats have been neutered. Our campaign will continue into the spring and we are so excited to know that there will be less strays being born in this area of Romania. At the moment we only have money for up to 200 dogs and cats in this campaign.

CAMPAIGN 2: Miroslava, IASI COUNTY

Our Iasi Cat Spay campaign is continuing into 2019!

There is a huge, unspoken problem starting to arise in Romania: There are thousands and thousands of kittens everywhere. The government does nothing about cats, stray or owned, and it does nothing to stop the spread of kittens being born every day. No matter how many times we lobby, there simply is no interest.

People do not Spay their own cats in Iasi because they simply cannot afford the EU22 cost. In a country where the average monthly wage is below EU200 we can understand why. Locals are not only bringing their own cats to our campaign, but they are bringing strays in too. At least in this area of Romania, many people are learning the benefit of spaying and they are becoming educated themselves. Our latest campaign and we have spayed over 100 cats already.

We hope that the locals start seeing a reduction in the number of stray kittens, which is a significant issue at the moment. We are also helping the people to learn about animal care, and the importance of preventing unwanted births – and in Iasi County, they are listening. Thank you for your support of our vital neuter and spay campaigns – helping us to tackle the root cause of the stray population of animals.

As this Newsletter goes to print, we have spayed 470 cats in this campaign – and we want it to keep
running!

In January 2019, Julie, Kerry, Alison and Nia went along to watch our Iasi spay campaign and support this vital community project at Izavet, Miroslava.

CAMPAIGN 3: JILAVA COUNTY

JILAVA COUNTY: Our 2018 neuter campaign in Jilava county was hugely successful in the community.

We feed the strays, and we leave them in their area if they are not in danger. There simply is no room in the private shelters to take every dog in, and life behind a cage is no life for a dog. Stray dogs really is a huge national problem, and we will continue appealing to the government to change the current law from capture and kill, to mass neutering – because their policies are simply not working.

In December during our visit to Jilava, we fed 20 dogs and pups in one street alone. We were so sad by what we had seen that we made an appeal on social media for donations. Two weeks later we went back, a vet’s spay mobile, a vet with a tranquiliser gun, and every one of the dogs was neutered, and then put back in their community.

Our Jilava campaign will continue Street by Street as soon as he have donations to carry out this
work.

CAMPAIGN 4: TIMISOARA

At the start of 2019, we carried out a second 200 dog and cat neuter campaign. It was sad to see how quickly our quota was reached – a desperate sign of how many dogs and cats are in need of spaying.

CAMPAGIN 5: GHIRODA

A village in North West Romania desperately needed help. In a town of reasonable tolerance for stray dogs, we started talking with them in February 2019. Our initial March 2019 campaign is for 100 cats and dogs. Within days of starting, the places have all been taken and the campaign was fulfilled, almost sad for us – another example of how keen people are to prevent unwanted births, yet cannot afford this themselves. Others who brought in strays from their community, only happy that there will no longer be puppies born.

A few days ago, we were overjoyed to receive a lovely message from the Mayor of Ghiroda, thanking us for helping his town. We hope to be going to meet with him to see if we can come to a mutual agreement where possibly they pay for some neuters too, and work with us in another campaign there. We are keen to keep this town on our neuter programme list, and help them again soon.

CAMPAIGN 6: DAY CAMPAIGNS

Luana’s Dream Fundation started an ongoing spay&neuter project in Curcani village, a remote area in the south of Bucharest, in late summer of 2015, with the experienced medical team of DVM Irina Corbu (Green VetCare). Since then, the team conducted about 3 spay days per year, that actually made a difference in the area for the local animals and their owners. There have been less abandoned pups and kittens and people have become more interested in the welfare of their animals. Having a medical team to advice them and ocassionaly consult their pets have made them feel like their animals trully matter.

March 2019
Paws2 Rescue sponsors this project, we were able to get to Curcani, where we were met with so much excitement and animals in need of sterilzation and a medical check.

Small, but very important, these were the numbers of pets spayed along these past years in Curcani:

August 2015 – 28 animals spayed
April 2016 – 23 animals spayed
July 2016 – 31 animals spayed
October 2016 – 29 animals spayed
May 2017 – 24 animals spayed
July 2017 – 34 animals spayed
October 2017 – 25 animals spayed
2018 – 54 animals spayed
November 2018 – 40 animals spayed

We are hoping to be able and continue helping the animals in Curcani, which we can only do with your support!