During the last 15 years in Sofia City there's been carefully nourished a peculiar perplexity by a bulk street manifestation of growing-up domesticated dogs, followed by the disappearance of them most.
The city's dilemma proceeds as a part of uncontrolled acts of possession, breeding and pet-animal commerce nationwide. According to the Veterinary-Medical Care & Supervision Act, The Municipality can only collect and exterminate the street's roaming loose animals but in meanwhile can't prevent the debut of thousands unwanted ones.
Besides this dynamically fluctuating overpopulation figure there are about 2-3 thousand of so called "neighborhood" dogs let living free in the different communities for better period of time. Quite enough number of the latest are sterilized and they are not the cause for the emergence of the thousands growing-up "newcomers". The disarrayed streets of Sofia outshine by far the long established and deeply entrenched abuse of the pet animals in Bulgaria.
The Veterinary-Medical Care & Supervision Act states that the preventive measures in a likewise case lays upon the Bulgarian government. The Act obligates The National Veterinary-Medical Supervision Service to duly enforce a register control over the ownership, breeding and pet-animal commerce nationwide. Although long on the books, there is not such as yet practice down on the ground and thus leads to excessive ever-changeable and untraceable populous.
In Sofia tens of thousand owned dogs are left unregistered and untagged. For the lack of data about the number and movement of them and to that of their offspring fuels the public's misconception that owned dogs are not the source of their own overpopulation. The immense delusion that there are enough candidates for the offspring and the great misconception to that giving birth is a healthy act, entices almost every bitch owner to become an unregistered breeder. Precisely this circumstance plays a crucial role for populous to be on the rise (approx. by 30% annually).
On the unregulated nationwide market are constantly offered and promptly
dump for next to nothing or free an enormous number of puppies. So they readily find home and thereafter stay unregistered. Subsequently a big number of their new owners get soon bored with them and in turn start trying to pass them to any and everyone by placing ads for a secondhand dogs. Mere number of the continuous offering for an easily affordable young animals makes grown-ups unattractive for secondary adoption.
The unregistered secondhand dogs rarely fall in The City's dog shelter. There are only few functional dog shelters in Bulgaria with the gross capacity of 20,000 (approx. 2% of total dog population) in which mostly "land in" the "street-dogs". On the other hand the healthy owned dogs are being collected smoothly and unobstructed through ads or theft and are systematically turn into commodity for the illicit trade. There are numerous registered cases in The Sofia City's dog-shelter, that the animals kept in it are also falling a prey to the illicit trade.
Emil Kuzmanov
Founder
Animal Programs Foundation
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