We thought you'd like to see this first hand report from one of the FOUR PAWS team:
April 2022
Rosia and Masia
While the horrors in Ukraine keep on tearing families apart, people are fleeing Ukraine looking for shelter in nearby countries. Refugees are forced to run towards Romania, Poland, Moldova, often making the difficult choice to leave their pets behind or take them along on their difficult journeys. This is the case for one family able to safely reach Bucharest with their two cats and fortunate enough to receive free tickets to Lyon, France, only to be informed that the low-cost airline was unable to transport their pets. This is how Rosia and Masia were left, in the care of Animal Society and were hosted and cared for by our friends at Ilfov Animal Protection in Romania.
Through our colleagues and partners, we took it upon ourselves to find a solution for this family and reunite them with their cats. The very few companies authorised to transport pets by road did not go to Lyon but operated mainly in the North or South of France. While the cats were safe, they were very scared and sad, clearly missing their owners and time was of the essence. Animal Society was trying to find other refugees who were travelling by bus and might be willing to take the cats to Lyon with no luck.
Not getting anywhere, our colleagues from Animal Society managed to find an airline that was auhtorised to transport pets and boarded the first available flight accompanying the two cats on their journey. We are very happy to announce that the cats were successfully reunited with their owners and are already enjoying their new home. Never give up and keep on trying, and eventually, stories do come to a happy ending!
See below for pictures of Rosia and Masia:
image copyright FOUR PAWS | Animal Society
image copyright FOUR PAWS | Animal Society
image copyright FOUR PAWS | Animal Society
The moment of this reunion was very emotional - we saw tears of happiness and the cats, Rosia and Masia calmed down instantly, after being agitated and stressed for hours on end, no matter how hard we tried to offer them comfort during the flight.
Rosia and Masia re-united with Marianna and Rissel
image copyright FOUR PAWS | Animal Society
Their story is also a cute one. Rissel and Mariana, the cats owners, have been a couple for several years. They both adore cats and knowing this, they actually got to surprise each other with a cat.
One day, Marianna saved a stray kitty from the streets, Masia. The same day, Rissel bought a cat – Rosie – for Marianna, knowing she was going to be so happy!
So now they are a family with four members, two happy adoptive parents of two lovely cats.
They left their home in Odessa because of the war and are now hosted in Lyon by a nice French family.
On their way to France, they passed through Bucharest and some volunteers bought them their flight tickets, not knowing that cats will not be allowed to travel with them (the airplane company didn’t have the license for pet transportation.
We met them in the airport, they were desperate, because they couldn’t remain in Romania (their family is in France) and they couldn’t afford other plane tickets, they didn’t have any money.
We took over the cats, which were hosted for three weeks by our friends from Ilfov Animal Protection.
They were so happy, so excited that we helped them get together - "the most beautiful Easter gift ever!", as they said.
Peter says: A great real life example of why we set up a fundraiser and why it has been so well supported. We have left our donation "product" live and will continue to pass 100% of any monies received to FOUR PAWS. Thank you for supporting our initiative.