The shelter has stopped admitting new animals before we are finally closed down, but life goes on here, pretty much the same as it has for the last 4 years. Despite the huge efforts to fund-raise that have drained all of our energy, we continue to do our real work – helping the saddest critters from the streets of Sofia.
The clinic is full and the dogs that have been admitted for treatment will enjoy the care of our vets till the end of the month when they should all be feeling better and our roads will part again. We have chosen 3 cases to share with you today, sadly they are all very typical of what we do.
The Gypsies
They are 8 dogs from Sofia’s largest Roma district – Filipovtsi. They came to us through the Municipal dog-catchers, we have a mutual spay/neuter program for the Roma districts in the city. When the dogs were offloaded from the bus and put into quarantine we realized they all look too bad – runny eyes and noses, droppy movements – it was obvious they were all ill. We ran them a quick test for distemper and there it was – all 8 dogs are infected, so they all came into our infectious-disease quarantine.
All of the dogs are young. The oldest is about 1 year old. The horrible fact about them is that they all howl constantly. The poor souls don’t want to be cage, but will have to put up with it if they want to live. Yesterday, unfortunately, we had a huge scandal with a Roma family that came looking for one of the dogs (blue-eyed), worried that we will sell their animal and not give it back. We tried to reason with them, promised the dog will go home after it was cured and neutered, but they were totally dis-interested and took the dog home after signing a paper that they are aware what they are doing, which we are certain they were not. Unfortunately, when it comes to dogs that are someone’s “property” we can do absolutely nothing.
Rayna
Rayna is a mangy dog that came to us at the end of November from Knyajevo. She is 1,5-2 years old, absolutely bold and very, very skinny. Looking for shelter from the freezing cold, Rayna had found a run-down toilet near the woods and hid there. It was there that the people who called us in found her. We picked her up immediately – a dog like this cannot survive outside for long.
We have many mangy dogs for treatment with us right now and we would continue to admit them, but unfortunately with the now 7 infectiously-ill dogs at the clinic admitting immuno-compromised dogs is too risky. We had to refuse admittance to an animal that really needs help now:
If you can offer support in the form of a foster home whilst she is treated, please contact Tihomira AT THIS LINK.
Mikey
Mikey is a 2-months-old baby. Passersby heard him cry in Liulin district. When they took a closer look they realized the fingers of his front paws are missing and have been cut at least for a few days. We cleaned his wounds, bandaged him and sent him to the CVC for x-rays so we can see if the bone tissue is still healthy and what rotten parts need to be removed. We cannot be sure what happened to him, but we assume he was perhaps ran over by a tram somehow.
We hope that now with the dead tissues and broken bone particles removed, he will be able to heal on his own and perhaps even run one day, although not very elegantly, but he is a little bear anyhow. Mikey is a wonderful, wonderful little boy – never squeaked or made a sound during all the procedures and has been friendly and patient through it all. Still, he spared no effort to proclaim his dissatisfaction with the fact he has to be closed in a crate at night and made quite the fuss – he is so sad to be alone, oh, how happy he would be if he could spend his Christmas in a foster family…
We go on forward, dear friends, we thank you for your continuous support for the saddest animals in this city!
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