Romania 2014: Who Let the Dogs Out? (part 3)

June 30, 2014

I want to briefly talk about dogs in Romania.  Every country has dogs.  Sometimes people own them, other times, nobody does.  However, in Romania, a large quantity of dogs are either unowned or unrestrained in the city and countryside.  In addition, the government has no laws regarding neutering, animal control, or keeping dogs on leash or contained within a fence.  The government also doesn’t euthanize ferrel dogs.  This has contributed to a large population of dogs that wander the countryside and beg in the streets of cities.  Many of these animals are harmless, however, when roaming in packs, they can become very dangerous and even deadly.  For example, there have been a few incidences of dog attacks in Bucharest, Romania’s capital city, some of which have led to mortalities.  This one reason Alina is very nervous around dogs.

I mention dogs in Romania, because they have always been a deterrent against running in populated places.  However, for this trip, we purchased 2 pepper sprays for joggers.  

We woke up early on Monday, June 30th, to go running through the city of Codlea.  It was a cool morning and the sun was coming up as we jogged through the city streets, past people walking to work, a few with curious expressions.  We ran through the city center, on the road leading North of the city.  We crossed the road when we saw a dog on our side of the street a few times.  The road took us out of the city, to rolling hills and farmland.  We crossed the road as we kept an eye on a large furry dog on a hill to our left and after 2 miles, we turned around to go back into town.  As we approached, we noticed a large, dark dog trot out to the road from a farm driveway, where he waited for something.  We crossed to the other side of the road, but Alina was too nervous to continue.  We waited for the dog to wander back to its home and then we continued, without any other canine catastrophes.