Courtesy, Carmel Pinecone

By MARY BROWNFIELD

A PUPPY struck by a car on a Romanian road and left for dead instead winged her way across the globe and is in search of a Carmel home, according to her rescuer, Nancy Janes.

The founder of Romania Animal Rescue, which aims to help control the huge population of homeless dogs there, Janes found Anamarie in the city of Galatsi, where an estimated 12,000 dogs live starving on the streets. Janes decided to give the puppy, who is partially paralyzed with a broken back, a chance at life.

"She was just on the side of the road, and I knew nobody would have the money to take care of her, to do anything for her," said Janes. The puppy, almost 6 months old, pulled herself along the ground with her front legs, dragging her motionless lower body behind her.

"I was going to take her to a vet there and have her put to sleep, and then I thought, I'm just going to try," she said.

Janes had the young dog vaccinated and cleared to enter the United States. Next, she bought a little wheeled cart that holds the puppy's hind legs and rear end off the ground while she propels herself with her front legs.

As Janes and her husband, Rory, vacationed in Carmel this week, she grew convinced someone from this wealthy dog haven would provide a home for the crippled Anamarie, a small collie mix.

"The city she came from is absolutely filthy." Principally a steel mining area, like so many towns in the former Soviet bloc, Galatsi is poverty stricken, according to Janes.

"Starving, thirsty and abused"

Anamarie is not the first dog Janes brought to the states from Romania to find a better home. She founded her small nonprofit Romania Animal Rescue about five years ago with the intention of helping the out-of-control population there.

"I was hiking in Romania in 2001, and the situation with the dogs was just mind-blowing," she said. Homeless dogs roam the streets, where they are hit by cars, abused and starved.

"The government will go out every once in a while and put out poison for the dogs," she said, but those that escape continue breeding, and the population booms again. Janes' group offers neutering at no cost.

She visits the country at least twice a year and has been known to bring home a few of its more heartbreaking cases.

"I've brought back nine on various trips, but a lot of people get mad when I say that because we have dogs here who need help," she said. "But it's just so completely different there. The dogs have a 0.0001 chance of living a decent life. The rest are going to be absolutely miserable-—always starving, thirsty and abused. People throw rocks at them."

The couple's ranch in the Mt. Diablo foothills, where they keep three horses, is also home to seven dogs, but Janes worries Anamarie will get trod underfoot by a horse or bullied by the other canines. The property has steep hills difficult for the puppy to navigate in her cart, so she’s often confined to the porch.

The ideal home for Anamarie would include a yard with a soft lawn where she could relax. "She just likes to be petted and have chewies and lie in the grass," Janes said.

And Anamarie needs an owner who can provide some specific care. Janes believes she might regain some feeling in her legs, but the poor pup’s paralysis makes her incontinent. At night she's diapered and in the morning, washed, just like a baby.

"But everybody's just in awe of her, and she's very cute, too," Janes said. Anyone interested in adopting Anamarie should call (925) 337-1277. Janes said she is willing to travel to Carmel multiple times if it means finding her Romanian orphan a proper home.