FEATURE
Meet the ‘Rommies’ looking for love A
Hundreds of dogs find themselves in the care of Animals in Need (AIN) every year, and some of them have quite the journey before they arrive. Beki Kelly is usually on hand to greet them. Pulse's Sammy Jones discovered more about the dogs and their rehabilitation.
plentiful number of pooches wind up in Northamptonshire from faraway climes every year, with many coming from Romania – staff at AIN affectionately refer to these 'ruff' lads and lasses as Rommies. “The journey can be pretty traumatic for the dogs, who will have been stuck in a van for a couple of days,” says Beki, one of those responsible for settling the animals into their safe haven upon arrival. “Many of them won't have travelled anywhere before, so after such a long journey they are extremely nervous and bewildered.” 30
Romania is a country with relatively few animal welfare laws, but high numbers of street dogs, a population that began increasing rapidly when the country was industrialised; families were forced to abandon houses for apartment blocks which didn't allow pets. As a consequence, many animals were abandoned, the majority of them un-neutered. Street dogs are treated like pests, and culled just the same. Many shriek in fear when they are rounded up by control officers using catch poles, and, just like us, they struggle to let go of bad memories: “We see the after effects of that
treatment with many of our Rommies terrified of leads or a tightening feeling around their neck, which has been caused by the stress of their capture,” Beki told me. In Romania, the captured dogs face overcrowded conditions, and a lack of food and space. Their holding spaces are filthy, disease is rife and the terrible environment proves too much for some animals. Unfortunately, those that do survive the horrifying conditions are killed if they aren't claimed within two weeks. There are organisations trying to help, many of them operating with only a trickle of financial
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