A Short, Recent History of Stray Dogs in Romania

This is an excellent documentary about stray dogs in Romania:

Man's Best Friend - Film (English) from Eastern Europe Stories on Vimeo.

(I wrote the following before having discovered the above doc, produced in 2012, so there may be some repetition of information but this will bring you somewhat up-to-date.)

Stray dogs have been having a hard time in Romania (link has graphic content) for a while now. Many consider the dogs to be pests and sometimes dangerous pests. There are thousands of reported dog bites every year and also a few deaths and of course the dogs, being voiceless, are always at fault.

The most recent cull in 2013/2014 was started when a four year old boy was killed by allegedly stray dogs. In response, hundreds of thousands of dogs were shot, poisoned or beaten to death. Some were simply tortured in retaliation (graphic) because somehow that makes sense to some people. In the end, it turned out the dogs who had killed the child weren't stray dogs at all but were privately owned "guard" dogs. The owners were charged with manslaughter.

Regardless of the outcome of that investigation, the cull continues and the majority of stray dogs still live, and die, like vermin.

The stray dog population is an issue regardless of which side of the love/hate divide a person sits. And being human, the preferred solution is slaughter so slaughter it is but there is pressure from EU countries for dog culls to at least be done humanely through euthanasia.