As you know Sofia is unique for being surrounded by mountains. Vithosha, Stara planina, Lozen and Ljulin – four very different and yet very beautiful mountains, favourite for ski or climbing tourism.
Since they are so close to the city – many people go there in the warmer months, so there are quite a few dogs living high up the slopes, depending on tourists to be fed, surviving nt he brink of starvation. And this is especially so in the winter when fewer people klimb up the mountains and there is simply no source of food in the blistering cold.
Often people write to us about dogs in need somewhere up the slopes near Sofia. This week we had not one, but two such cases – the cases of Spas and Rady. The strange thing is that we went to both those places on signals of pregnant females dogs. Svetlio had gone to catch them for neutering and both times came back to the shelter with a “bonus” – a dog in need.
Spas lives in a beautifu area called The Golden Bridges on the top of Vitosha. He has been living there for over 8 years since he was dumped and is a favorite to everyone. He is a gentle, calm dog with eyes blue as the ice he is surrounded by. He is also extremely underweight and malnourished and with a huge wound on his fron leg.
Spas must have gotten tangled in a wire somewnere, because his wound was huge and clean cut. It is of huge luck to him that it is still very cold above 1 600m and the infection didn’t spread to the rest of his body. When we brought him in we feared he would lose his leg, but instead he is now healing quite well and should be soon ready to go back with his friend we took for neutering.
This girl comes from another muntain – Lozen. Again we found her when we went to pick up a pregnant dog for neutering. We called her “Rady”, because she is so thin that her body feels like the shape of a radiator – you can feel every rib.
It was a scary sight when we she came to Svetlio. She was falling on every second step, so thin and cold that she coudl hardly stand.A huge tumor hanged from her belly eating away the little she had on her… And in the same time – the poor little tail was wagging, licking his hands, behaving as if this was the happiest day of her life!
Rady is now in Bogrov groing through tests as the remuval of a tumor so large bears many risks and can be very tricky. Meanwhile she must be the most saisfied dog in the shelter. She lays in her cage like a queen, enjoing the warmth, the food and human attention down to the very last drop!