The Cruelty Towards Dogs Knows No Bounds

Trigger warning: This post speaks of animal abuse and animal killing.

Trigger warning: This post speaks of animal abuse and animal killing.

Sleep deprived on a transatlantic flight, my third in as many weeks, I’m still haunted by last night’s screams. I almost couldn’t tell where they were coming from as I stepped out of my house in my underwear in the middle of the night, hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever animal was so in distress as to make those sounds. Our four house dogs, all howling in sympathy, first woke me. Shortly thereafter, in between their howls, I heard the heart-wrenching cries of what sounded like an animal suffering. I wish I could say these sounds were new to me, but I’ve heard them far too often since first coming to Romania. The sounds, as far as I could tell, were coming from the neighbors up the hill.

A few shorts days prior, while walking down the street to drop off our recycling for collection, we saw him; the sweetest little dog, cute and lovable and clearly full of love, lying dead on the side of the road. It was not long since we fed him on the street when we first met him, and not long since we subsequently found him chained to a tree in the hot sun with no water and a collar tied together with a jagged wire. The dog was known in the village; one neighbor accused him of killing her chickens, another found him dead in her yard and discarded him to the side of the road to be someone else’s problem. Yet it was the neighbors up the hill who tied him to the tree and left him with no water. Those same neighbors accosted us in the local grocery store after we set him free.

This beautiful boy deserved so much better.

Here’s where I’d like to pull back, as this story is not meant to slide into unprovable accusations. Each neighbor speaks ill of the rest, each has made claims of animal killings by the other, not a single one of their accounts can be trusted. My partner and I didn’t move to the village to play private investigator, nor did we move with the intention of creating an animal refuge. Circumstances, though, forced our hands, as neither of us can stand watching an animal suffer.

I write these words as a jet carries me an ocean away from my partner, from the home we’re building together, from the thirteen dogs currently in our care, and I’m very afraid. I’m afraid of what cruelty those living next to us are capable of. I’m afraid of what cruelty those in the rest of Romania, and indeed in the rest of the world are capable of. Heading to the airport on one of my recent trips I missed my train stop and ended up one village over, where from a distance I witnessed a witless farmer yelling at and whipping a cow. In a recent discussion with a friend from Spain she recalled the cruelty towards animals that can still be seen in some pockets of her country. And indeed, even in Canada, a dear friend recounted tales of the occasional sack of puppies he’d come find in the water while canoeing. It feels like too much sometimes.

I’m especially afraid for Dor. A shelter dog who spent his first years on the street, Dor is curious and smart, but also unpredictable. While we’ve been raising money to build enclosures and replace our decaying fence, we’ve nonetheless tried to offer Dor as much freedom and time to roam the yard as possible. Dor is a big dog, though, and very strong, and the fence’s many weak points are no match for his relentless determination. A few days after the boy was found dead, poisoned according to the neighbor who found him, Dor managed to break through the fence and wander to the very uphill neighbors who we know have at least mistreated one dog, and may have in fact done far worse.

I’m also afraid because I feel so helpless. An ocean away, traveling on short notice first for an illness in the family and now for the subsequent death, I can only check in with calls and messages while my partner shoulders the burden of keeping thirteen dogs safe in a very unsafe place. Recent events have left us wondering if we should move away from the place we’ve only recently made our home. In reality, though, there’s no guarantee any other place would be much better, and there are so many dogs in our village who need help.

This is the part where we ask for your help. We’re fundraising, not just to build Charlie’s Refuge but to continue feeding dogs on the street and in the shelter. But it’s not enough. We need reach, and we need an audience, as we don’t have enough space for all the dogs who need help and the shelters are already overflowing. As soon as we get a few enclosures finished we’ll be taking in even more dogs, but the hard part is finding them permanent homes. Our goal, after all, is not to hoard dogs and keep them in cages, but to find them the loving homes they deserve. Please stay tuned to this space, and please follow us on Facebook as despite the platform’s many evils it’s better suited to sharing pictures. Donations are also welcome, as the costs to feed and house these dogs is significant. Thank you, each and every one of you, for the extremely helpful financial support and the extremely kind words of encouragement. We wouldn’t have been able to get this far without you.