The first Cernavoda “Spayathon” just ended and it was a success: between Thursday the 12th and Saturday the 13th of May part of Save the Dogs’ team took part in the free spay marathon for owned pets.
The initiative was born from the need to stop the birth and abandons of puppies in the area in which we work. Since our little clinic does not let us satisfy all the intervention necessary, we decided to organize this event with the authorities for sensitize the owners about the importance of spaying their pets.
Unfortunately, every Save the Dogs’ initiative in Romania has its difficulties and this event makes no exception. For a bureaucratic mistake that we had no control over, Thursday we were forced to leave the place the Municipality gave us and move to the public gym. The move was quite hard since we already began to make surgery over some animals and we had to move them too.
But the problems were not over because some parents protested about our work: they were concerned about the use of a location designed for the sport activities of their children. For this reason, despite all our reassurance about the hygienic and sanitary precaution we took, Sunday we were forced to suspend the Spayaton.
We did not find enthusiasm even among the pet owners. Despite the communication around the forthcoming event, most of the animals we managed to spay were brought in by our staff, which did a door to door activity to convince the families.
All the difficulties we coped with did not keep us from enjoy the results: 72 dogs were spayed and micro chipped in a day and a half work. We want to repeat the initiative and we already made contact with authorities to have an adequate space in which we can work.
There is a long way ahead and teaching the owners how to be responsible is the hardest part, but we are sure that the tenaciousness and the perseverance of our work will make the difference in the long run.