Romania Approves Dog Slaughter.

Recently I have been doing a great deal of tweeting about the recent events in Romania where a boy was mauled to death by a pack of stray dogs. In light of these incidents, and with the further excuse of preventing disease, the government has decided it is best to resolve the issue by rounding up the estimated 60,000 stray dogs and killing them. The term one paper used was "cull," (next to pith, this is the most awful word in the English language). There have been massive protests by Romanian citizens, along with world wide outcry, and some of the most horrible pictures imaginable. 

What is the answer? Well, from someone who has traveled the world over I will personally testify that I cannot go to many of these countries any longer because the number of homeless pets brings me to tears, until I look closer and realize that many of the two legged inhabitants are just as destitute and desperate as the four legged residents.I don't know how you protect people when desperate unloved and uncared for domestic pets are cast aside and expected to fend for themselves. I also do not know the scenario that ensued to cause a pack of dogs to attack. But I know dogs well enough to know that there was likely a reason. I know that in just about every single act of violence from a pet to a person there is some person who ultimately is the original source and/or exacerbated it.

Let's talk about this. Dogs are domestic creatures. They were bred, raised, and are still a human beings responsibility. We are responsible for keeping them tame, trained, obedient, healthy, and a member of human society. A stray dog is a persons failure. This implies they remain a human beings problem should their original guardian fail them. It is the continual dilemma of every veterinarian, behaviorist, rescuer, and society at large.  

Ask the largest, wealthiest super power in the world how we do it? Well, we just keep the streets cleaner by humanely (?) and more inconspicuously ridding our pe(s)ts from the public view. Is the US any better? Well, instead of 60,000 dogs, we euthanize millions, estimates of over 4 million, every year. 

We just don't call it slaughter.

Here is Steve Dale's article;

Romania Approves Dog Slaughter

2 comments

By Steve Dale, Saturday at 3:29 pm

(Photo: Daniel Mihailescu, AFP/Getty Images)

Romania's answer to solve a stray dog problem is to round them up and kill them, which was just voted into law by Parlaiment September 10. This follows a report that  a 4-year-old boy has died and his 6-year-old brother was injured after they were attacked by a pack of stray dogs outside a park in Romania. And in 2011, a woman was attacked a ultimately died of injuries suffered as a result of stray dogs.

The law allows the state to round up the city's estimated 60,000 strays and have them put down. Despite hundreds of protesters urging parliamentarians to vote against it, the law was overwhelmingly approved -- by a vote of 266 to 23 (with 10 abstentions). Bucharest Mayor Sorin Oprescu had announced that a referendum would be held on Oct. 6 before deciding whether to go ahead with the plan.

Gabriel Paun, director for animal rights group 4Pfoten, told BBC News, a nation-wide sterilization strategy is necessary to control the burgeoning dog population.

"In the last few years we've castrated 100,000 dogs in Romania altogether, 10,600 of them in Bucharest," he said. "But it's not enough, this is a voluntary private project -- we need them to do the same thing at national level."

According to rescue group Any Dog, the cost of killing a street dog may be considerably higher than sterilizing.

Still, one can understand the breath of the problem - which apparently ballooned after the fall of communism. A Bucharest hospital spokesman told The Associated Press 9,760 people have been treated for dog bites in the first eight months of this year alone.

Certainly, living on the streets and scrounging meals, competing against so many dogs isn't a impressive quality of life for the dogs either, and many are mange ridden, there's canine distemper and likely rabies. The parliament acted after protests Sunday in which several hundred people came out with banners reading, "My country is not a kennel."

 Steve Dale, Chicago Now.

If you have a pet question, or any other pet related item that you would like to discuss with me, you can find me +Krista Magnifico, @pawbly, or at Pawbly.com