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Animal welfare group finds systemic neglect at public dog shelters in Romania
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 15 May 2026
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Dogs were not originally seen as pets in these countries, but rather as work animals. If you were to visit rural areas in an Eastern European country 5-10 years ago, you'd find that people that owned a dog had them chained up next to their fences, used them for protecting their livestock, or used them for hunting. If one were to escape, the village would have an extra litter of puppies that would most likely be dumped in the middle of a field or another village.
I'm not arguing for horror stories like puppy mills, which I am completely against and agree with you in those kinds of cases. But countries like Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, etc. are a bit different. Most of these dogs come from rural areas, which managed to live off of garbage until now.
The alternative to the shelter is euthanasia, but I am honestly glad if a responsible person decides to adopt the animal instead. What you should really be against is people paying to adopt a specific breed from a breeder, not those that free up space in actual shelters.
btw i believe that is partly also the reason why some places in southeast asia have traditionally eaten all kinds of meat, including dog, cat and snake meat. because there were simply too many stray animals around, and they pester people (stray dogs can be violent), and if somebody eats the meat, that means that somebody gets paid to round up all these stray dogs and put an end to them.
I'm sure they're already against breeding. They're just saying the root cause of this problem is domestication. Whether it was for "pets" (as in just for cuteness) or for labor like you say.
If every domesticated/not wild animals were captured, neutered/spayed, and adopted or better, taken care of at in a centralized, public fashion of animal sanctuaries, these domesticated animals will in theory go extinct. And for some "pet lovers" that's hard to accept.
Not saying you're wrong (which you aren't, obviously), but the problem here is still the same: People. If not for "pets" then we created them for work or other kind of slavery. Which now ends up in exactly these problems of "stray" dogs WE created. Can't argue on how many of those strays in RO are ex-pets or ex-workers, i just lack the statistics.
u do realize that wild animals existed before humans started having pets?
Yeah i know. The 5000yr old ancient fossils of pugs and chihuahuas that were recently dug up were eye-opening 😁