50 beautiful billboards, city lights and bus-stop banners advertising Spay&Neuter centres, dog registration and dog adoption will be touring the city of Sofia for two months and if the campaign proves to be successfull, maybe even more.

The campaign is a part of a large effort to popularize responcible dog ownership and is a joint effort by the Sofia municipality and Animal Rescue Sofia.

It comes along with the free spay/neuter for both homeless and pet animals at municipal and private Spay/Neuter centres. There is also a free microchip program for pets to encourage the spay/neuter of pets.

Animal Rescue Sofia has distributed thousands of educative brochures on responcible dog ownership and is looking for a sponsor for another print:

Spay/Neuter leaflet

Adopt a dog leaflet

Animal Rescue Sofia leaflet

Be a responcible owner leaflet
All stray animal problems come from humans who know little or nothing about responcible dog ownership.
Educating the public is the most important work to be done here in Bulgaria.
Contact us if you would like to help us print and distribute our brochures.
Thanks and regards to everyone involved in education in the animal welfare field!

As a natural continuation of the Jinx Of 2011 Award, and triggered by the sadness which this award caused, we decided to repeat our original attempt, but this time, to the other extreme. It is clear that all adoptees are lucky, but who had the craziest best luck of the year, and who almost got away from happiness but destiny, in the last moment, placed its finger on its tummy and said “I like You!”.

5. So and So

The story is such – a carton box and two puppies inside appear. We explain to the people that there is no way to accept them, there is no space… The people leave and the carton box with puppies is thrown on the road in front of the shelter, from the car in motion… While wondering what to do with them, two of the guys that work at the shelter as caregivers, look in the box and… distinguished their future new best-friends! The 2 puppies spent all in all 10 minutes in the shelter, and after that they went to wonderful homes, to owners who, we are sure, would take care of them!

4. Zhivka/Meggie

Zhivka was a thrown away bolognese, who Peter brought to us to be neutered. At that time, the shelter was very full and we could not accept new dogs (it actually is like that always but…). Zhivka has to be returned to the street in a couple of days buuut…. It did not happen. Because during her short stay with us, her person appeared. Instead of going back to the street, she went home with Ekaterina. They could’ve passed each other, it was a matter of hours…

3. Focker

Svetlio was going to work. On the Hemus Highway he saw a dog hit by a car, lying on the ground. The cars were speeding around it, it was a matter of seconds for someone to finish it. They would have, but they didn’t. Svetlio picked it up and (guess whether there was space at the shelter at that time?) Vesy Kosturska tooked it in foster care. Nowadays, Focker is a happy Austrian, and perhaps has no idea that his life was hanging off within an inch of his life…

2. Tihomir

Ok, I admit that we just recently told you about him, but what is the probability this to happen in exactly that order? His owners waited for him to deteriorate to such a bad condition, so he would not be able to survive even a week, when they throw him away. They got rid of him in the middle of nowhere. Nadya and Svetlio happen to pass by exactly this day (they don’t do it often, its out of their route) and on top of that, Nadya, who generally is a distracted person, notices the dog in the distance? Well, tell me, isn’t that an unbelievable luck?

1.  Kosta

 
Yep. Now here we can say that this young pup was born with a silver spoon in the mouth. Born and abandoned in a school yard. Up to here – bad. Some mean children beat him. Becomes even worse. Could’ve been the worst but… good starts. Someone notices him (let’s say this happens often). This someone cares (this however is rare). This someone knows Dr. Stankova and calls her. We accept him, amputate his hanging on a bone paw, and it goes to foster home.  He becomes stronger, gets used to people, and at the end, the tale ends in Germany, where Kosta becomes a loved pet.

Well, aren’t these doggies lucky?

ALSO SEE last years’ most unlucky dogs here, hopefully you’ll bring them luck:

Students from the nearby school look at the dumped bodies as they pass by

The mutulated bodies of a small-sized young adult dog and a large  young adult cat were found dumped in Studentski Grad near a garbage bin today. The bodies were left for everyone to see – just threwn on the pavement.

The animals were skinned completely, without a single piece of skin left, much in the manner of rabbit skinning. They were dumped by a garbage bin in Sofia most likely between 3 and 6 days ago, since their little bodies are frozen into the snow. The disturbing images can be seen HERE.

The policemen from Sofia Police district Nr7 say “there is nothing they can do”. We have also alarmed the National Food Agency (in charge of domestic animals as well) and the Sofia Municipality. That said, we doubt anything will ever be done on this case.

We strongly urge anyone that may have information on this case to get in contact with us by e-mail. This is a crime – we should not let monsters walk free amongst us.

Great publicity day for the Bogrov shelter! We had 2 national TV stations air reports about our work! You can see the reports on the links below (in Bulgarian only).

NOVA TV aired a story about a dovoted Bogrov volunteer – Raia!

BNT 1 aired a story about neutering and microchipping at the shelter

A happy day for animal friends in Romania – the Constitutional Court has ruled that the new law, passed by the Parliament in the end of 2011 is against the Constitution of the country! The law, voted by 168 romanian members of parliament allowed municipalities a choice wether they will be using euthanasia or Spay-Neuter-Return as a method of decreasing stray dog overpopulation. This is a major win for dog-lovers both in Romania and abroad, bringing a clear conclusion to a strong debate among romanians.

Since the end of the communist regime of Ceausescu EU member state Romania developed a serious stray dog problem. For decades authorities failed to intervene properly. Dogs were inhumanely caught and killed randomly.

In the 90′s The World Health Organization proved scientifically that killing dogs has no effect on the root cause of the problem. The W.H.O. stated spay/neuter is the only effective way to reduce the number of free roaming dogs besides informing the citizens about responsible dog ownership. Stray dogs are not the problem itself; it’s the irresponsible dog owners who continuously deliver new fertile dogs in combination with corruptive authorities which sabotage spay/neuter projects to make money.

Besides the fact spay/neuter is the only effective way to deal with a surplus of dogs, it is humane and much cheaper than the endless catching and killing of free roaming dogs.

In Romania stray dogs are seldom euthanized humanely. Dogs are being caught violently and beaten to death with baseball bats, shot, poisoned or starved to death.

The last decade Romania has spent 40 million Euros on tax payer’s money on the stray dog problem, but due to corruption the money ended up in private pockets. The stray dog problem turned into a very profitable business for many politicians and their relatives.