Animal Shelter in Moldova rescuing, caring for and re-homing stray animals. In 2013 with financial help from a small group of animal lovers from Germany, Datcha came to life. The shelter is run by Ira Marcu, a Moldovan who dedicates her life and works tirelessly to save animals in need.
Many of our dogs and cats have been saved from the city’s death kennel, rescued from the streets after having been hit by a car, saved from abusive treatment by their owners, found dumped near or inside trash containers, or cowardly abandoned at our gates in card boxes or in the forrest surrounding our shelter - just to name a few. At Datcha they have access to water, food, medical care and cuddles.
Our Challenges
We do no receive any government funding and rely solely on donations. We constantly struggle financially to meet the basic needs of the shelter: food, medication, salary for the caretakers, maintenance of the shelter and the kennels, etc.
And volunteers ... we are always in need of volunteers to help us walk the dogs, feed them and most importantly show them love and attention they so much earn for.
Our biggest challenge however is finding adoptions for our four-legged friends. Currently, Datcha is home to over 380 dogs and 100 cats, which greatly exceeds the shelter’s capacity. Unfortunately, we are often forced to refuse to take in new rescues. Local adoptions are rare and we constantly struggle with the overcrowding in our shelter. There is almost zero interest amongst Moldovan population towards adopting non-pure breed pets, which is not considered cool. Many of our animals have been with us for years in a row, waiting for their chance to live a better life outside kennel metal bars. Sadly, some of our rescues have been residents of the shelter for over 5 years, since its foundation. The ultimate reward for us is to see one of our rescue babies turn into happy, healthy family members in forever homes.
Before coming to the shelter, Ira drives around Chisinau early in the morning feeding and taking care of other neglected dogs and cats in the streets, who we are not able to shelter unfortunately. We hope to find loving homes to as many of our dogs and cats, so that we can free up space to save even more.
If you feel you can help in any way, by donating, raising awareness, fundraising or by offering one of our dogs or cats a home, we'd love to hear from you. Every little helps, so we are grateful for your support.
Stray Animal Situation in Moldova
Dogs and cats in Moldova have a hard and terrifying existence. They are frequently abandoned in remote places and left to starve to death. It’s not uncommon for a mum and her babies to be dumped in the forest where they all starve or die of untreated illnesses. People have been known to abandon their pets just as they would abandon rubbish. Hit by cars and left to die in suffering on a side of a busy road, poisoned, kicked, beaten and shot - this is the cruel reality of stray animals in the Republic of Moldova, where there is no animal welfare legislation or national animal protection agency. Society sees them as dangerous enemies, the local governments deal with the problem by employing dog catchers to ‘clean’ the streets from strays, often using barbaric and inhumane methods. And only a small number of volunteers and private shelters have a triple task: to rescue rejected or abused animals, to raise funds for them and to educate people to care and respect them.
Dogs with owners in villages are far from living a happy life either - they are often seen as objects needed just to bark and guard the house premises. It is not uncommon to see them confined on a metal leash for their entire lives. In some cases, if dogs don’t fulfill their owners’ needs - they are being disposed of, either by killing or abandonment. They are rarely seen as loving family members and treated likewise.
Moldova is a poor tiny post-Soviet country with the population of about 3 million. The country does not know how many animals live on the streets of its cities and villages: neither the authorities, nor the organisations have this information. The only figure, sometimes quoted by activists, is about 4,000 homeless dogs in Chisinau capital city alone - counted in 2012 by the British Foundation "Naturewatch Foundation". The city does not even have a municipal shelter.
There is no culture of spaying or neutering in Moldova, no state-funded sterilisation programs, so we constantly see new rounds of homeless puppies and kittens born into this cruel environment with no fault of their own. Many of them will not survive to adulthood. The government seems to be uninterested in putting any efforts towards dealing with the country’s huge stray problem. Until they will stop ignoring and dealing with it humanely by organising country-wide neutering campaigns of both stray and owned pets, and enforce laws to control the reproduction of companion animals, this dire situation for the poor dogs and cats of Moldova will only continue.