Images inside a public dog shelter showing injured dogs, overcrowded enclosures, blood-stained space and dogs shut away in cramped cages have caused outrage among animal welfare groups.
On Monday, Romanian and international animal welfare organizations urged the Mayor of Constanța, Vergil Chițac, and local veterinary authorities to take “immediate responsibility” for the appalling conditions at the city’s public dog shelter.
The groups said the shelter is allowed to legally hold 521 dogs but was housing 634 animals in May 2026. It said that despite large sums of money poured into the shelter in the last 20 years, conditions remained grim.
According to official records, 156 dogs died at the shelter last year while only 194 dogs were adopted.
The organizations said the the current situation wasn’t the result of an ‘unforeseen emergency’ but years of inadequate management and missed opportunities.
“The dogs of Constanța cannot continue to pay the price for years of inaction. Mayor Vergil Chițac has often spoken about standards, responsibility and the image of the city. Yet the conditions in the municipal shelter have become one of the clearest stains on his
administration,” said Anca Tomescu, President of Animal Society.
Among the concerns raised are insufficient space for the animals, prolonged confinement in
small cages, unacceptable hygienic conditions and the absence of an effective strategy to
reduce the number of stray dogs through prevention.
The organizations say the municipality has failed to implement a long-term program
based on sterilization, microchipping, public education, responsible ownership and measures to prevent abandonment “internationally recognized pillars of sustainable stray animal management.”
Tomescu said: “Between 2022 and 2024…., we made our expertise, our staff and our funds available to improve conditions at the dog shelter….
However, we encountered nothing but obstacles and a complete lack of political will.”
They organizations called on an independent inspection of the shelter, an immediate halt to
catching more dogs, an audit into the 156 reported deaths, immediate improvements to housing conditions, changes in the shelter’s management, full access for independent organizations and volunteers, and the adoption of a comprehensive prevention strategy that meets European animal welfare standards.
Sara Turetta, the well-known President of Save the Dogs and Other Animals which manages a animal welfare shelter west of Constanta, said:
“What we have seen at the public dog shelter in Constanța is a situation of suffering
that cannot leave us indifferent. We are not facing an unforeseeable emergency, but the
result of years in which solutions have been ignored. We renew our invitation to the
authorities to visit Footprints of Joy, an internationally recognized facility located less
than an hour from Constanța, to demonstrate that another model is possible.”
“It is unacceptable that what is considered Romania’s seaside capital – visited every year by hundreds of thousands of tourists from across Europe – should run its public dog
shelter in such conditions.”
She said that Bucharest had made ‘huge strides’ over the past twenty
years, whilst Constanța has stood still despite huge sums of money pumped into a “dilapidated facility.”
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