(Sept. 20) – Next October 4 in Cernavoda, in Romania, the new project by the Italian Onlus Save the Dogs, “Footprints of Joy”, will officially open. It will be an innovative facility with a low environmental impact on a 5 hectare property which will be the association headquarter. Its large indoor and outdoor boxes offer accommodation for 350 dogs and 70 equines, either horses or donkeys. Inside there will be a large cat shelter and a European-standard veterinary clinic, soon base for a young veterinarians study center. The big project took more than three years of work and it has been funded exclusively by private donors and from the association partners: the English Donkey Sanctuary, the Swedish Hundhjalpen, the Finnish Friend of Homeless Dogs. The facility will be a base for educational and pet-therapy programs for kids and for a volunteer center, a service which is almost completely new to the Romanian society. The opening ceremony of Footprints of Joy will be attended by the Italian Ambassador in Romania Mario Cospito, MP Andrea Zanoni, Vicepresident of the Animal Welfare Intergroup of the European Parliament and the newly elected Mayor of Cernavoda George Hansa. The mayors from all the Romanian towns have been invited to the event, as Save the Dogs intentions are to turn the center into a model facility for the whole Country. (Peg)
