Hello! Thank you for visiting my page. An even bigger thank you if you've made a donation - every little bit truly does help. And if you haven't donated yet, then I hope after reading this that it may convince you to.

In 2023, my life was made significantly better when my cat, Fig, arrived from Romania. I had seen a photo of her looking for an adopter when scrolling Instagram, and her little cross-eyes made me fall in love. She has brought so much love and light to my life and after everything she's been through; from surviving cold winters with no food on the streets of Romania to being blinded and inches from death after being hit by a car. Despite this, she is still the most loving, trusting, kind, patient and happy being I have ever met.

It was after adopting Fig that I started seeing a lot more posts by Romanian pet charities, and from there I ended up in a research wormhole which opened my eyes to horrors I never knew existed.

There is a huge stray cat and dog problem in Romania and despite multiple charity's best efforts to rescue and rehome as many animals as they can, as well as running TNR programmes, they are fighting fire with fire as the stray problem has spiralled out of control. This is a problem amplified in a culture where dogs are often bred repeatedly and puppies which aren't 'aesthetic' enough are dumped. Sometimes, this is in bin bags which are thrown in public bins or even rivers. Other dogs are tied up outside homes and left. They do not come into the house, they do not leave the yard, they are never untied. They spend the harsh winters outside being used as nothing more than a living house alarm to prevent intruders.

So, what happens is that stray dogs are collected from the streets and held in so-called 'kill shelters'. Here, they have a deadline to find a home, usually 2 weeks, before they are euthanised. These dogs are often healthy, loving, fit and young - including whole litters of puppies who never even have a chance at life.

Charities such as Care For Dogs Romania, which are who I am fundraising for, have kennels where they can house these dogs. But they need funds to do so, and they need space - empty kennels by people choosing to adopt their next family member from a shelter. It's hard and we can't save them all, but we can help.

It costs approx. £400 to save one dog's life. Specifically, I am trying to save the dog in the above photo who caught my eye in the kill pen and I just knew I had to get her out. Once she is with Care For Dogs, she will be assessed and treated by a vet and taken into safe and secure kennels, where she will wait to find her forever family and be safe from being killed, purely for existing.

If you can spare anything at all - I have 2,000 followers and even if everyone donated just £1, it would be 5 dogs lives saved. 5 dogs who will be saved by death because people donated ONE POUND! How fantastic would this be??

I am selling all October photoshoots for a £40 donation and have my fingers tightly crossed that with this offer, we will be able to save this girl and hopefully more.

You can find out more about Care For Dogs Romania's work at @carefordogsro on Instagram, or search their dogs available for adoption (they can be adopted to the UK!) at: https://carefordogsromania.org/en/adopt

(I've set up this page as a GoFundMe as I couldn't send the funds direct to the charity with it being based in Romania - but I can assure 100% of donations minus GoFundMe's admin/processing fee will be donated via Bank Transfer to Care For Dogs Romania)