The Institute in Romania for the inauguration of 'Footprints of Joy'

On October the 4^th, 2012, in Cernavod ă, in the Costanza district, the Institute participated at the ribbon cutting ceremony of Footprints of Joy, the first animal shelter in Romania, dedicated to dogs and following E.U.   quality standards. The inauguration was held on World Animal Day and was attended by the national press as well as various authorities, including the Italian ambassador to Romania, Mario Cospito, Mr. Andrea Zanoni, vice president of the European Parliament's Intergroup on the Welfare and Conservation of Animals, and the newly elected mayor of Cernavodă, George Hansa.

The shelter is home to about 350 dogs and more than 70 horses and donkeys, comprising 700 square meters of covered spaces and 5,000 sqm of open ones, between pens and walkways. It was entirely funded by private donors as well as English, Swedish and Finnish associations.

Footprints of Joy is part of a much wider project of the i talian non-profit organisation Save the Dogs and Other Animals; which - beyond the fight against the problem of stray dog populations through free sterilisation campaigns - aims to impart a cultural and symbolic value, by offerings didactic programs in schools and opening the shelter to the public by making it a pleasant and accessible place.

For many years The G. Caporale Institute has been engaged in research projects aiming to enhance the management of stray dog populations in urban areas, by promoting responsible property and by developing evaluation instruments to measure the welfare of dogs living in such shelters. By confronting itself with realities greatly differing from the Italian one, the valuable collaboration, with associations such as Save the Dogs, allows for higher validity and applicability levels of the research products