Subject: Robert Smiths Report
Sent: Tue, 26. Aug 2008
My advice is to implement Neuter & Return in towns or villages or areas where you have an efficient, motivated local partner active and experienced in N&R, school education and door-to-door canvassing
You must have an exclusivity contract with the local municipality – you must have the sole right to collect dogs, solve dog problems and all complaints must be referred to you.
Do not trust municipal officials or politicians.
Do not start on a project which you cannot finance and see through to its conclusion.
Rehoming dogs abroad is nice for those individual dogs and maybe for your volunteers, but it is expensive and does nothing to solve the underlying stray dog problem.
The most reproductively successful dogs are those with owners or feeders or protectors – i.e. factory, petrol station, restaurant, farm dogs. Feral dogs are not reproductively successful.
Bear in mind that a N&R project costs approx. 1 Euro per citizen per year (the number of dogs is in proportion to the human population, but with more density in villages and less in large towns with blocks of flats).
Rgds Robert Smith
* . * . *
From:
ROBERT
SMITH
Subject: Smiths Report
Date: August 26, 2008
Our
website is
www.sosdogs.ro
We
are making good progress with our SOS Dogs Oradea and SOS Dogs
Bihor projects.
We hope that by the end of summer 2009 we will have neutered and
returned in just about every town and village in Bihor
province.
We have fixed clinics in Oradea and Marghita.
We use a commercial vet’s clinic in Alesd.
The municipality of Beius is opening its own fixed clinic which we
will use in cooperation with the local animal welfare NGO.
And we have two mobile neutering teams in the
summer.
We
continue to implement neutering projects in Prahova, Arges and Gorj
counties as well.
Kind
regards,
Robert
Smith
Note A.A.P. :
Mr.
Robert smith is
President FPCC Foundation for the Protection of Community
Dogs
President Fundatia pt. Protectia Cainilor Comunitari
* . * . *
Date:
July 3, 2007
FPCC is implementing Neuter & Return projects in Oradea which
we are now extending to the whole of Bihor. We have reduced the
unsupervised dog population in Oradea significantly in the last 3
years.
We have ten year contracts with about 15 different towns in Romania
and we also conduct school education programmes focusing on
responsible dog ownership.
Mr Karcsi Lazar (0723 656621), director of the project in Oradea,
can tell you more and can give you advice.
First please look at our website
www.sosdogs.ro
email
The problem with Neuter & Return, is that even if the mayor is
intelligent enough to understand it, as is the case with Oradea, it
is constantly undermined by the dumping of fertile dogs from
surrounding areas. It is therefore necessary not only to neuter in
Bistrita but also in the surrounding villages and towns, to a
distance of at least 50 km, to stop the neutered dogs being
replaced by new fertile dogs when they die.
It is difficult to make mayors and officials understand that
“collect and kill” fails to solve the stray dog problem, whereas
“neuter and return”, if implemented properly and not sabotaged by
dumping, does eventually solve the problem. Mayors do not
distinguish between fertile and infertile dogs. They simply want no
dogs, especially at election time.
Kind regards,
Robert Smith
President Fundatia pt. Protectia Cainilor Comunitari