A ray of hope in sea of despair

In my last blog post I wrote about my absolute despair at the situation of 60 rescue dogs in a private shelter in Romania that will lose their home next week. Finding homes for that many dogs in Romania is next to impossible. Their fate however, if homes are not found, is almost certain death on the streets or in the local death shelter. It is faced with this task that I have turned, desperately to social media, to try to save as many of these dogs as possible.

I must be honest I had lost hope as few of people seemed to be responding to Anca’s plea for help. I also wondered how on earth the fate of 60 Romanian rescue dogs could cause even a ripple in social media at a time of so many other huge global crisis such as Ebola or Syria. Some people may say these are “only” dogs – but each one has a name, a personality and lots of love to give. But still they are a drop in the ocean. I truly despaired. My previous post was a true cry of despair, a cry for help from anyone listening.

And some of you did listen. Some of you did start responding, sharing and asking local rescues in your country. All of sudden there is a ray of hope in the sea of despair. We have started getting offers in from people who can take 1 or 2 dogs. A dog’s home in the UK, a foster place in Germany, an adopter in Switzerland, the offers are starting to creep in. I admit that it brings tears to my eyes to see the uptake of my plea for help. It brings me hope. It brings Anca hope – a woman who is a walking zombie she is so depressed and distraught about the fate of her dogs.

It is however still not enough. It is only a small ray of hope and we must make it bigger. We still have 50 dogs looking for a home. Some of them have never lived on the street. Others are so traumatised from their experience in the public shelter that they just cower in their kennels and shake at the sight of people. We cannot let these dogs go back to this horrific fate. These dogs need our help – urgently. At the very least we need to find long term sponsors who will save these traumatised dogs by paying for a private shelter where they are cared for.

Which brings me on to funding. Even when we have found homes for all 60 we still need to pay to make their final travel preparations (e.g. final vaccines for the puppies) and fund the cost of their travel, at €220 per dog. That is a HUGE sum of money. How on earth can a few individuals raise that sort of money?!!

It is looking at what still lays ahead – the impossible task of find more homes in such a short space of time and raising such a huge sum of money – that for me that ray of hope gets smaller. The despair sets in again and I cry. I do not know what else to do but keep begging for more help to pray with all my soul that we can find enough people to open their homes, enough people to give small donations (or a few big ones) and enough people to share this desperate appeal and find more help.

Again I reach out to you. Please help. Please share and donate. And please pray for 60 dogs desperately close to be thrown into a living hell. Please do not let them die in pain and misery.

For more information please visit: Help Save Anca Florea’s Dogs Facebook Group or contact me via Twitter @pharmaguapa or email pharmaguapa@hotmail.com or in the comments of this blog.