January 31, 2006
The death of a stranger
The packs of dogs prowling the streets of Bucharest are dangerous to begin with, and this is even more true in the winter when food is scarce. They become vicious and unpredictable. They attack from the back, they work together, they are desperate. I fear them.
The culling of the Bucharest street dogs has been called for many times. It has been done before, with mixed results. Romanians love dogs, in general, and it's hard to push through anything which looks like a cull. So they are doing it differently now, but they are doing it with a vengeance.
Why? Because on Sunday, a member of the Japanese Embassy died after a dog bite.
From what I've been hearing, the man was attacked Sunday night and died because one of the bites tore open a vein. He bled to death before anybody could do anything. It's not as if this happened somewhere in the outskirts of Bucharest. Nicolae Titulescu is a 15 minutes walk from our house, off Piata Victoriei.
Now, the dogs are pulled off the streets again. No, they are not killed. But an amendment to the law that will be pressed through in a hurry says that dogs picked up from the streets are to be kept at the shelters for 72 hours now and not for 15 days anymore. They are then to be sterilized and then... well, what happens then I have not been able to find out.
It's a bit sad that it takes the death of someone (and of a foreign diplomat to boot) in order for the stalled campaign to move again. The stray dog situation is a political mess. 70 to 80 people are bit every day in Bucharest but politicians are fighting over cognizances. Nothing has been done in the last two years, after the Animal Monitoring Agency was dismantled and its activities were taken over by the District of Bucharest from the City of Bucharest. (Still with me? I said it was a mess.) Blame for the suspended "stray dog campaign" which had been introduced by Basescu (then mayor) in 2001 is handed out in troves. Nobody is responsible and it's always the other one's fault.
But it's not only the politicians.
People are picking up dogs from the shelters only to set them free again. What the hey? That is an extremely short-sighted thing to do but it's impossible to argue with dog lovers. Almost all Romanians I've talked to said two things: Yes, the dogs are a problem. No, they should not be killed.
I'm going to make myself really unpopular now: I say, kill them all. As a mother of three kids, who has herself been attacked, who has a friend who needed rabies shots after a bite, and who sees the packs roaming the streets, I am very firm on this one.
Pull the damn dogs off the streets and cull them. Introduce a steep dog tax. Register dogs, give them tags. Give them stupid microchips so irresponsible owners who set their dogs free can be traced and penalized. It's time to get this problem solved once and for all, so that the citizens of Bucharest can wander their streets without fear. It would be nice if all the tourist guides had to be reprinted, too.
Harsh? Maybe. But come to Bucharest and meet a pack. And then we talk again.
Posted by claudia at January 31, 2006 09:27 AMCultural differences are interesting. Mexico City also has a stray dog problem, but the reason is that public services are still (with a few surprising exceptions) horribly inefficient. The public hates stray dogs. Some neighborhoods adopt well-behaved strays; most kill or terrorize them.
One neighborhood that I lived in inside the southern suburb of Tlalpan had a problem with dogs living in nearby park. By day, they were invisible; at night they would bark very threateningly at pedestrians. Since I often returned home at night, this was a problem.
Well, the fellows at the 24-hour taxi stand saw the dogs barking at me and shouted; the dogs scurried off. The next day, they gave me a stick, and told me to give the dogs a whack if they tried it again. I never had to. Merely raising the stick was enough to get them to run.
That is how terrorized stray dogs behave. Stray dogs, I surmise, are generally terrorized in urban environments in which the people are quite openly and happily brutal towards them, regardless of policy.
Yes, kill them all. And yes, it would be a good thing to have a well-funded public agency do it. Unfortunately, the problem in Romania seems to go deeper than inefficient and underfunded public services. If the public tolerates (even abets) strays, then the strays will behave badly, and won't go away anytime soon.
Posted by: Noel Maurer at January 31, 2006 03:14 PMVigilantism - it may not be the democratic/right thing to do, but it sure feels nice.
Posted by: Oskar L. at January 31, 2006 03:34 PMI loved my dogs: I'll have more dogs again, in a year or two I hope. But yes: Kill them all; in the hard equations of Real Life, human lives are rather more valuable than dogs'
In the meantime: pepper sprays exist that are formulated just for dogs. The main point of interest is the scofield units (e.g how hot) rather than the percent-concentration.
Posted by: carbonelle at February 1, 2006 09:54 AMDisturbing indeed! We Romanians don't always take this problem (stray dogs) seriously enough and it comes a bit like a shock when someone slaps you in the face with it. I also remember Doug's take on this matter.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a dog lover, we have two german shepheards over at my parent's house but you'll never catch me feeding a stray dog. And yes, I think a quick and painless death is the solution to ridding the streets of them.
Posted by: Vlad at February 1, 2006 01:15 PMI am the wife of a Japanese diplomat who is moving to Bucharest in 10 days (no, not to replace the one killed by the dogs). I am also an avid dog lover. I have to agree with you, culling the dogs are really the best answer to this horrible, horrible situation. Now we will be greeted in the Embassy by the long faces of the grieving staff members-not to mention the family of the "almost murdered" Diplomat. What a heinous situation to be stepping into. This incident has blackened my once positive outlook on the city that is to be my home for the next few years.
Posted by: Kads at February 2, 2006 05:18 AMKads,
Please let me be the first to welcome you to Romania and Bucharest. Apart from the dog problem, and the unpleasant situation you are facing by arriving at this time, Bucharest is really a lovely place to be living. I would hate if I had given you a different impression.
Let me know if you need any further information/assistance. We have been living here for 2.5 years and I'd be happy to share my "wealth" of information with you. Don't hesitate to contact me, via email or by phone at 07xx.xxxxxx. (Real number delivered by private email.)
Best greetings from Bucharest,
Claudia
Posted by: claudia at February 2, 2006 07:18 AMI agree with the cull approach - and I speak as (a) a Brit, and we're supposed to be even more dog-obsessed than Romanians; and (b) a vegetarian, which doesn't really have a relevance other than that I believe we have certain responsibilities towards animals.
However I have a couple of questions: I was under the impression that Basescu's big claim to fame as mayor of Bucharest was that he had dealt with the street dog problem. In fact, that's more or less anyone outside the capital knew about him during the election campaign. Does this mean he didn't deal with it? And what did he do, then?
Posted by: Csiki Andy at February 2, 2006 09:21 AMIt's ridiculous that we came at this drastic measure, but we have no more choices anymore.It's ridiculous that the so called animal lovers are in fact those who abandoned them.Who abandoned so many dogs on the streets ? My fellow citizens.It's absurd and stupid that I have to walk every time with a pepper spray on me so I can survive dogs attacks.I shouldn't have to do that but I have no choice.It's a crazy world in Bucharest, populated with crazy and angry dogs.The animals are beginning to look and act a lot like their cohabitants, the romanians from the city of stray dogs.
Posted by: Tommy at February 11, 2007 02:19 PM