I’M HELPIN Laura, 31, quit her job, split from her fella and now looks after stray dogs in Romania
EACH day dog lover Laura Myatt has the grim task of rifling through a city’s bins, boxes and refuse bags looking for dumped puppies.
Many of the abandoned pets are starving and abused, with gaping wounds or missing limbs. In winter they barely survive freezing temperatures, in summer they boil.
And Laura, 31, faces a race against time to find and save the strays before the dog catchers who will put them down.
She said: “I’ve seen so many horrendous things. If they were in Britain there would be outrage.”
Laura is a charity worker in the Romanian city of Bacau, 1,600 miles from home and a “comfortable country lifestyle” where she had a long-term partner.
In May 2016 her life changed when she started volunteering for Sadie’s Stray Dog Rescue, which has treated and re-homed 700 pups to loving British families in the past four years.
Laura said simply: “I saw things I couldn’t unsee.”
Laura now lives in a “grotty” one-bed apartment in the city near Transylvania and works 15-hour days in a country where she does not speak the language.
Slaughtered
She split from her boyfriend before leaving the UK and quit an equestrian industry job. She said: “People probably think I’m mad but this is where my passion, future and calling is – we’re saving lives here.
“Sadly, finding starving, stray dogs who are either barely surviving in freezing temperatures or practically boiling alive in extreme heat is the norm.
“Some are pets abandoned after becoming too much work or money to take care of. Many have been abused, with gaping wounds or missing limbs. Some we find tied up or with limbs missing.”
Each Romanian city has council-run shelters where government dog-catchers who patrol the streets take the strays.
But these are dubbed kill shelters by campaigners – as those which are unclaimed after 14 days are euthanised.
Laura, from Lamport, Northants, said: “The conditions at public shelters are appalling. We do all we can to avoid strays being sent there.
“They are captured using poles. It’s inhumane and the animals scream in fear. Once they’re caught, most are slaughtered anyway to make room for the vast numbers of other strays that must come through the system. There’s very little real care there.”
Sadie’s Stray Dog Rescue can cope with 250 pups and kittens and tries to take as many as they can.
Laura has been exposed to hundreds of horrific cases.
She saw a female dog who had just one leg, the other three had been chopped off.
Another caught in a wire snare trap had a huge wound around her middle, while a third had a leg hanging by a thread after being hit by a car. It was amputated and the dog made a full recovery.
Laura said: “One called Nora we found with her nose nearly sliced off, but with some surgery she made a full recovery and now has a wonderful home in the UK.” But for some, such as a dog in the final stages of distemper, the rescuers are too late and the kindest action is to have the pooches put to sleep.
Laura said: “What I used to think important seems a million miles away.” She used to travel around Europe and the US with her showjumping boyfriend and earned a steady wage renting out stables.
She said: “I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth but I had a fortunate life in the UK. I used to have nice holidays, go to events, parties and balls, with a social life which meant an awful lot.
“Now my life is unglamorous but so much more rewarding. I am on call 24/7 for emergency pick-ups.
“Each of our dogs requires feeding and cleaning so I’ll get stuck in to that and make sure worming and tick medications are up to date. I’ll update weight and vaccination records for dogs that are due to travel and post pictures for our social media channels.”
The pups she rescues are checked by vets, vaccinated and travel to the UK with proper paperwork as approved by Britain’s government standards.
The Uk-registered non-profit group, named after an adopted dog which was killed in Romania before she could leave for her new home, was founded in 2014 by Lesley Ford, from Banbury, Oxon.
With over 9,000 Facebook followers, Sadie’s, which relies solely on donations, has 12 volunteers in the UK and four on the frontline in Romania.
The country has 65,000 stray dogs in the capital Bucharest alone. We