A VISIT TO DOG SHELTERS IN GALATI,ROMANIA

The largest, operated by an organization called Help Labus, presently houses about 600 dogs and some cats on a muddy former farm beneath high power lines, at the end of an almost impassible dirt road running parallel to the railway.

Though Help Labus tries to avoid becoming a canine concentration camp, it is at best a refugee camp. The dogs are fed, and have resting boards and cloths to lie on, but most of the work of the organization appears to go into just expanding the facilities, constantly, to accommodate more and more dogs.
Few resources are available for sterilizing dogs, doing public education, arranging adoptions, or doing any of the other work needed to accomplish more than just saving dogs from the dogcatchers.

ROLDA is by contrast not primarily about saving dogs from dogcatchers. Saving dogs from dogcatchers matters a great deal to Dana, but because she tends to take the long view of the situation, ROLDA is chiefly about changing the paradigm for dogs, cats, other animals, and human/animal relationships.

Operating the shelter built by Arcelor Mittal is the largest ROLDA project, but it has never been the only ROLDA project. That shelter -- call it ROLDA #2 -- exists as an essential component of the Arcelor Mittal steel mill dog population control project, but Dana hopes that every dog in the shelter will eventually find a home, and that even those who do not will eventually enjoy lives comparable to dogs who have homes.Of course that is as yet a distant ambition.

Dana acknowledges that at the present state of completion, ROLDA #2 is still a prison for dogs, not what she wants it to become. It is clean, well-maintained, and the dogs are well fed. ROLDA #2 compares well with most animal control shelters in most of the world, but does not yet give impounded dogs the amenities that Dana anticipates adding just as rapidly as funding becomes available to add them. Currently the site does not even have a water supply or electricity, though high voltage electric lines run above part of it. Electricity and a water line may be extended from a nearby cluster of new housing, or ROLDA may need to have a well drilled. This will cost money, which has yet to be raised. Meanwhile, water is trucked in.

In Eastern Europe I have evaluated 24 shelters. Only three have scored as high as 70. ROLDA #2 scored 67.
When Dana raises the funds to do everything at ROLDA #2 that she currently envisions, the score could go to 100. There are no critical design flaws to impede improvements. What now exists is a sound foundation for further development.
Right now ROLDA #2 falls short of realizing full potential simply because every improvement must be paid for -- along with everything else that ROLDA is doing, and everything else that ROLDA needs.

Time and the Romanian weather have not be kind to ROLDA #1, the small shelter a short distance away that I first saw in 2004. Most obviously, the weight of accumulated snow and ice have buckled the roofing above some of the kennels. Some of the tile flooring is cracked. Dogs have given every part of the facilities hard use.
Built inexpensively, but with loving care, much of ROLDA #1 is already due for replacement. Building and operating it could be described as a successful learning exercise. Here Dana first showed what she could do, in one of the most difficult environments in for humane work in Europe, and perhaps the world.

Reconstruction has already started, but has been suspended due to tight funding and winter conditions. The concrete foundation is in place for a building to house cats. Building materials for completing the job are stacked nearby.

While assessing everything that was underway, everything that is damaged, and every job that still needs to be started, I was impressed again by how much is right about ROLDA #1. The buildings and layout of the grounds well suit dogs' needs. The only unhappy dogs at ROLDA #1 are those who have just arrived. Soon they will make friends and live and play with congenial companions.
The entire shelter, as on my first visit, was as clean as mud season permits. Nothing is allowed to be dirty, or stink. Every detail expresses care.

ROLDA #1 scored 79 in 2004, at the time the highest score I had given in Eastern Europe. Despite the battering that ROLDA #1 has received from the elements in the interim, it scored 84 in 2010, benefitting from various improvements made since 2004. ROLDA #1 remains conceptually sound and a safe, comfortable environment for both dogs and the people who work there.

ROLDA #1 was built, for example, not only to show fellow Romanians how dogs should be sheltered, but to show how dogs should be treated as pets. It was, and is, not just a holding facility for dogs, but a home, where dogs are actively prepared to be adopted successfully.
ROLDA #2 was built as part of a project demonstrating that animal control need not consist merely of killing dogs.
This article was writen by Merritt Clifton after visiting all the shelters within Galati area in March 2010.