.....As far as I can remember, a lot of money arrived from abroad, about 10 years ago, to pay for neutralize stray dogs...
And what came out of this? Most probably several villas and luxury cars for those who are - in this country - more...equal than the others (there is a joke about a hen's legs: the left leg would be more equal than the right one...)
I think at least four gernerations of stray dogs passed away since one pretended to have put into practice the neutralization- the few red dog collars (meaning that the dog wearing it had be neutralized) became a symbol of mockery and theft...
During the times of sad "communist" memory (well, really sad for eveybody?), during the seventies, the dogcatchers would bring their victims, supposed to be only stray dogs, to the only Municipal Dog Slaughter Unit (Întreprinderea de Ecarisaj Bucuresti). Well, stray dogs, so to say, as our dogcatchers would enter private closed properties and took dogs from their masters' yards, or else, they used to take the animals over the fences. (by that time, we had a wonderful Grand Bouvier Bernois, a heavy dog, and we did find in our closed yard, in front of our house, catchers' torn leashes. The guys were not at all stupid, as capturating dogs belonging to someone, usually loving masters, who would come and rescue their pets, meant bigger revenues for them...)..And our municipal dogcatchers used a sort of metal rod "lasso"s, who strangled or even killed the dogs caught therein...they had no account to give for their cruelty...Nobody among the officials cared for any other living creature than themselves and had never even heard about "animal cause or animals' rights"...
I remember well the face of Olga, an old blue-eyed small woman, with a sad complexion, always busy cleaning the cages and looking after the poor dogs in that hell of the Municipal Slaughter House. As its yard had been cut in two, there was little place left for all the dogs brought by the dogcatchers, hence, the administration had decided to keep the dogs alive only one week instead of two, which was quite cruel towards the poor dog masters, who had little chance to find the way to that special place and rescue their pets..As for Olga, she was always there, speechles, pale, clad in work clothes, wearing a rubber apron, rubber boots and rubber gloves. One could say: "Well, big deal! She must have been a municipal employee cleaning that awful place!"And yet, no! She was a volunteer, a retired teacher, who did her best to accompany those destitute dogs on their last days on this earth; she was a dignified person and worked hard to provide for those animals. She gave them water and food, cleaned the cages and looked after them( how on earth could she get that food?)... She "dignified" that place... And I am sure, on the final day, when she arrived before Lord's Last Judgement, her defender was no other than Saint Francis, who else? .... Axel Munthe hadn't he been honoured in the same way, had he?
Nicoleta, martie 2010
