Dear Supporters and Friends,

I attended the Animal Rights 2009 conference in Los Angeles. Now I am off to Washington DC to work with Susan Johnson of the US State Department. Together, we are trying to start a program for the animals of the Balkans. Susan used to work in Romania, and is now in Bosnia.

We are spreading the news about the progress we are making in Romania. We have listed two causes on Facebook, Stray dogs of Eastern Europe and Romania Animal Rescue. Please link to our postings on Twitter and BlogSpot to your own social networks. The more links you make, the greater our outreach to help these stray animals in Romania.

I know that you have heard about the stray animals in Romania. They don't live like they should! Almost 80% of dogs are on streets! We need your help to support us with anything that will make people (especially the mayor) understand that animals have souls too! Maybe you will say that the situation will continue unimproved, even if you will support us! But that is why we are sending messages to people in different countries rather than our own. In Romania the corruption is part of daily life, with almost half of Romanians admitting to paying bribes! They don't care about animals, they just care about their money, and what they must do to have more money than anyone! I have been involved in the politics of my town, but they said that if I wanted to help those animals I would have had to pay from my own money!

They kill dogs every day if nobody rescues them from the shelter. They don't kill them with drugs or what is legal. They just hit them till they die! Dogs eat bad food and nobody cleans their mess! They become the food for animals from the zoo! With the help from Animals Protection from Bucharest, we were able to close the shelter for 3 months. After that, our mayor started again to order dogcatchers to the capture of dogs in the night and kill them. During a big event or when some important person comes to our city, the mayor has the dogcatchers clear the zone of stray animals.

When we go to the primary shelter, they don't let us enter. They know we will count the dogs in the shelter. Every week there are different dogs in shelter from the prior week. We are looking to get land where we can build a shelter. The mayor said that if we don`t collaborate with him, he will not agree to give us a land. The mayor is looking for someone to blame. But the problem is not just with the mayor.

It is also with people who think that is our fault the animals die and we can't change the situation. They say there are children who die every day and we just care about dogs. We explain that we are maybe 100 people who care about animals. The rest of people can do the rest, of caring for children and so on, or if we take care of animals we must also take care of people. There are reports of Gypsies who release their horses on the streets especially in winter and don't feed them. Owners don't want to take a dog from the primary shelter even if we will sterilized him. If the dog gets a tumor, they won't take him to a doctor that is about 10m from them (the veterinary cabinet). They call us to get the dog to the doctor and ask us to pay from US$10 to $100 for the surgical operation. People called and told us that a man threw a cat in the fire. We got there as soon as possible. The cat survived for five more days, with worms eating her, making her scream like you can't imagine. When we reported the man to the police they said we must write a statement for the police to arrest him. The man had threatened people to make them afraid to submit any statement. This man still walks free today. People take puppies from their mothers, put them in a bag and throw them in the river.

Many dogs from the streets have itchy skin. Dogs from shelter with mange have little fur. Sometimes they kill them with an ax, or with a stick like dogcatchers use. We find many streets dogs, most of them female, with tumors in their belly, or with dead puppies inside them. It is so sad when we see helpless animals just die or suffer because nobody cares about them. We found a dead dog near a meat storage unit who layed there for two weeks with nobody doing anything with him even if the smell were unbearable.

We hope we can change all of these problems and make a better world for animals. They deserve it. You can visit our website where you can find more information about animals from Resita, and see photos about animals that I described here and animals waiting to be adopted.

Good Afternoon!

My name is Alexandra Özdemir. I am 17 years old and I am from Romania. I live at about 70km (45 mi) from Bucharest, in a village named Visina.

I love animals and I have 5 dogs home. That's the reason why I would need some help or, at least, some information. I have land, about 1 acre. I would like to make a dog shelter because there are a lot of homeless dogs that are walking all over the streets. I have already taken two dogs from the streets and I took care of them. Now they are living in my house and I love them very much!

I would like to know if anybody would help me build or finance the the building of the shelter.

I don't want any money for myself! I just want to keep safe all those dogs that are out there.

Do you know that almost every day a dog is hit by a car? Do you know that people hit dogs on the street without a reason?

If there is anything that you can do, please, let me know.

It's all a little odd, how Pear came to have his name. As a racehorse, he was Irish Cream, as per the Jockey Club records, going from the tattoo inside his lip. Then, at a point, someone named him Pappy, and that was his name when Patricia Kinneman bought him as a school horse. Then, he was named Michigan, all the school horses are named for states. So when I bought him I wanted the sound of Michigan out of his life, for he was starting a new life away from all the work he had done in the school. I thought I give him a name with the P sound from Pappy, but one of the other words for the same meaning. So, Papa, Padre, Pere (with the accent mark in French), and I thought, I'll use the French word; but it seemed terribly affected to spell it that way, especially since you aren't able to have the accent mark made here; so, I decided to spell his name as the English word for the fruit, and in saying his name, people would be calling him Father, in French. So, there you have it. Pear, standing for Pere. Although I loved that his name was the word for the fruit, for pears are beautiful, and taste delicious. And then I gave him a last name, so his full name on the stall plate was/is Pear Blossom, which is very pretty, and complete. So, his name had a transformation of sorts, and two meanings.