Thousands of dreadfully abused, tortured, injured and diseased dogs – many close to death – have been subjected to ‘a life of hell’ on the streets of Romania before being rescued by volunteers.
In one case, all four legs of a dog had been partially and deliberately hacked off with an axe by a teenage boy. Another young dog suffered a blood clot after official dog catchers fired a four-inch nail between his eyes. This weekend a puppy was also discovered ‘buried alive’ in a deep freezer beside the bodies of other puppies.
Skeletal, blinded, and bleeding, the dogs are left to die or deliberately slaughtered according to the UK-registered Paws2Rescue charity, which says tortured or starving dogs are discovered every day.
They highlight a disturbing catalogue of cases on their files, including:
A dog so badly beaten its eyes had literally popped out when rescue workers found it in a pool of its own blood.
A young dog tied to a tram line so that it two back legs were severed by the speeding tram.
A chain tied so tightly around a puppy’s throat that it left a gaping, bleeding wound.
A dog that had its jaw hacked open with an axe so that it was hanging by the skin when rescued.
A dog catcher pole and wire embedded so tightly in a dog it broke its teeth trying to escape.
Dogs inhumanely poisoned at official shelters.
Dead dogs kept in with living animals.
‘It is so shocking, nothing can quite prepare you for what we have seen,’ said Alison Standbridge, a 46-year-old mother-of-two, who helped found the charity.
‘We have seen quite appalling, harrowing cases of dogs that have been beaten and bloodied, slashed with weapons, stoned, driven down by cars and left to die and, sometimes, few people in Romania’s towns and cities seem to care.
‘Some of the dogs we find are no more than a bag of bones, their ribs pressing through what remains of their coats – it is pitiful…so cruel.’
The risk and insurance executive from Sutton, Surrey, who travels monthly to Romania, continued: ‘Our aims are to rescue dogs from the streets, public shelters where they can be officially killed after 14 days and from shocking conditions while increasing the awareness of what is happening in Romania, a fellow member of the EU.’
Sacks or boxes of unwanted puppies are regularly hung to the fence of the shelters they operate with local partners in the Romanian capital Bucharest while others have been chained to the gates or just thrown over them into the compound.
We have wonderful vets and help in Romania and it is very much a team effort,’ Alison added. ‘Our aims are to rescue dogs from the streets, public shelters, or from shocking conditions, and support our Romanian NGO partners and rescuers in providing these dogs a safe shelter, so that they can live a life knowing love, good food and treatment.
‘Whilst the lucky few dogs we will adopt into homes mainly in the UK, but also anywhere in the world, our key aim is to help rescuers with the thousands in their care.
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