There are so many lovely dogs in the shelter of Bogrov. Here are a few sweet pups and mothers from the quarantine department where the new arrivals and nurcing moms spend time till they are ready to be introduced to the dogs in the big dog building:

Great work by the volunteer team, thank you so much, guys and girls!!!

The shelter was cleaned and desinfected thoroughly, the dogs were walked and got new toys, the storage-rooms were re-organized, the outer enclosures were desinfected and half of the gravle changed! Too bad the rain spoiled working Saturday, but Sunday was also a great day for the hard-working volunteers. Tommorow the outer enclosures will be finished. See the photos from Sunday:

Vessy Kostourska our Head Keeper just raised Cayenne, Felix, Grizly and Beever – and here are new three she decided to dedicate her nights to…hand-rearing puppies is not only time-consuming and difficult, it is also risky for the puppies as they get no antibodies from their mother and can easily become ill or just not make it. Wish these babies and Vessy strenght and luck in this new struggle for life that so few dumped puppies get the chance for.

Puppy dumping is a common site in Bulgaria, castration is still concidered an ugly word and so-called owners prefer to dump their bitches puppies twice a year than to take the time and have her neutered for free.

Warm thanks to Good Idea vet clinic and most of all to our fabulous friend d-r Bobadova who, with the help of Mr.Sokolov of BlitZ window company gave us a precious gift: mosquito nets for the quarantine departments, clinic, sergery room and rehabilitation room! This is a very, very treasured gift, as flies can transmit many of the infectious deseases no matter how good the hygiene is. THANK YOU!!!

Thank you Evgeny Evtimof for the wood pellets you found and payed for us! Many new dog-houses and other useful stuff will be built out of this precious material!

Our big thanks to a donor who wished to remain anonimous for the generous donation – we now have one more set a brand new laundry machine and a tumble dryer!

This is actually great news – the machines we had kept working all day, but still not enough to wash all the dirty bedding. Now we can double up on laundry.

Caramel has a wonderful big family in Belgium! She was the first Bogrov puppy to be adopted and one of the very first who entered the shelter.

Caramel arrived with her whole litter – a colourful pack of unbeleivably different, yet samed sized puppies – all of whom very beautiful, they grew healthy and strong and became really lovely dogs!

Caramel and her brother Curry who is now adopted in Germany were puppies everyone at the shelter were simply in love with. Curry’s siblings Coffee and Croisant are still waiting for their luck in the shelter.

Shelter life can be SO BORING!!!

Laying arround all day with nothing to do… Eat, sleep, bark somewhat, pick a few fights and… that’s all. Living in the shelter of Bogrov sure is easy. No need to scramp for food or run for your life all the time. Noone to harrass you, beat you, threaten you or just chase you away. But still – living in a cage is not what dogs are made for. Dogs are born to live with humans and enjoy their company, sniff grass and go on long walks… And here they are – 500 of them, sitting arround with pretty much nothing to do…

Sometimes even getting a hold of a bunch of weeds can make the difference between a day when all you can do is pick fights with your roommates and a day when you can actually play with them:

Although we get wonderful help from the volunteers who come to walk the dogs on weekends – it’s really not enough to keep the dogs happy. We’ve tried giving them the regular toys, but it’s not the best idea. A few balls were accidentaly washed into the canal and caused a sewer blocage, and the rubber toys they got were an object of envy and scandals in the few hours before they were simply chewed away.We’ve com up to a simple notion:

WE NEED SOME SERIOUS TOYS HERE!

So, the first thing we can do is find something the dogs can safely chew on… Something that is not too tasty, because fights are easy to brake in a confined area. Something like simple burning wood for example. Also we need very strong rope – we have an idea – to tie some motorcycle tires to the cage walls, so the dogs would be able to chew and pull on them without making a mess everywhere.

Do you have any ideas how to make our dogs lives more interesting? Why don’t you share them with us, or help us accomplish them – A Few Good Men can help allot in our mainly female team. The dogs would surely benefit allot!

We need the following items:

• old tires;
• strong rope;
• chewing wood.

If you can help us get them and bring them to the shelter – we’d really appreciate it!

The 19-th International Homeless Animals’ Day in Bogrov

Animal Rescue Sofia team is hoping to see the day when no dog or cat be left alone helpless in the streets of Bulgaria…

Our  vet Nadia cleaning bite-wounds this weekend…

Bogrov is packed… And biting incidents occur every day. Even though we redestribute dogs in groups, trying to always separate the ones that don’t like each other (we must also devide them by size) – all in all we have 21 cages.

This Tuesday was a day to remember… We are forced to send dogs away every day – there is no more room. But Tuesday… Tuesday was a nightmare. FORTY *40* dogs had to be sent back in one day. And people do get mad, sceram, yell, swear – expecting us to help every single dog in the street, or just bringing it: “OK, here’s a dog, fix it, bye!” Who cares there is no room, no resource… It’s hard sometimes, really. Hard.