Mr Pál Lázár lives in the centre of the town and he has first-hand experience of how destructive the stray dogs can be.  They regularly visit his garden and a few years ago attacked his sheep, tearing them apart.  This month he was also bitten by the animals while in his own garden.

There is a local animal shelter in Csíkszereda but this is already past capacity.  Although it should only hold 300 animals, there are 400 dogs there at the moment. The shelter is paid for by German benefactors and the shelter works together with German and Austrian shelters to find homes for animals. 

According to Éva Orendi, the animal shelter's director, last year the shelter found more than 1000 dogs homes in both Germany and Austria.

She said, "the most important thing would be to change the people's mentality, so that they don't have a dog until they get bored of it and then throw it out into the street, but rather keep it as a companion.  I think that getting rid of an animal because you get bored is cruel and I would like to see those who do that get punished."

She sees registering animals, and mandatory castration as the beginning of a solution to the problem.

The capital of Transylvania has gained an unpleasant reputation as being full of stray dogs, with attacks on people common enough that they no longer shock the locals.

Only recently a woman was attacked by a pack of stray dogs while out walking.  She was bitten all over her body and died of her injuries.

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