Story

Over the last few years Freedom Angels Romania have worked hard on establishing comprehensive local spaying and neutering programmes and are beginning to forge better relationships with local councils through meaningful dialogue. Our goal is to eradicate the abandonment of animals on the streets and in doing so, lessen the burden on the burgeoning shelters in Romania.

The yearly Spayathon campaigns start with teams of vets setting up a local dog hospital for 3 days, made possible by our funding. Our volunteers then round up and collect as many stray and abandoned dogs in need of neutering as possible. The dogs are then taken to the vets for treatment. To perform the procedure costs around 35€ per dog, but this does not include the travel and general fees associated with the vets and volunteers, as well as the aftercare for the dogs (who must stay at the location as long as possible after the procedure). Many animals are also brought in with various other injuries or health issues, which we make sure are dealt with by the vets but are at an extra cost to the charity. These issues could include things such as fleas, mange and broken bones. With all costs taken into account, each Spayathon costs FAR a minimum of £8,000.

We plan and oversee at least four spay campaigns each year; two in Constanta and two in Braila. These normally take place in April and September due to the harsh weather conditions in winter and summer. We hope that each Spayathon weekend results in up to 200 dogs being spayed, which will, in turn, result in these individual dogs being unable to add to the out-of-control breeding and stray issues Romania has.

Even though we are keen to save and rehome as many dogs from Romania as we can, we know that the main issues lie with the uncontrollable dog population in the country. Although we make many dogs and owners incredibly happy when an adoption takes place, we would always prefer for our services not to be in such high demand. This is why Spayathon is such an important campaign; we are spearheading our funds, energy and efforts into one of the major causes of the stray dog issues in Romania in the hope that we one day no longer have to worry about the poor treatment of dogs there.

*Cover photo shows dogs that have been rescued from the streets in a private shelter in Romania. As you can see the situation is dire - there is no Battersea or Dogs Trust there. All we can do is hope to spay as many dogs as possible to stop them living in this hell on earth.

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