We visited the Stara Zagora shelter again this weekend gone. Unfortuantely one of the first things we saw was three dead puppies lying in a kennel in an outdoor pen. Mum and two remaining puppies were also in there. They had not been dead long and given the amount of worms on the ground and in the faeces around the pen, its likely they died of massive worm burden or toxicity if recently treated for parasites. But Parvo virus and Gardia is also rife at the shelter so they could have picked up any number of diseases.
There are now over 80 dogs in the shelter, including numerous puppies. The capacity of the shelter is around 50 to 60 dogs. Many of the dogs we have seen before seem to have disappeared, others that have been there a long time are losing condition. There are too many dogs and not enough staff and a lack of compassion and empathy.
One old guy, Jack, has been there for 5 years and is now around 13 years old. He has always seemed in relatively decent condition and got out on the odd short walk once a week or so. But this visit we saw he had lost weight, it was difficult for him to get up and out of his bare plastic bed and he was very stiff on his back legs. So we decided he really deserves to spend the rest of his days in a nice safe garden, with a warm bed and two good meals a day. So we have prepared a pen for him and hope to get him out of the shelter this week.
There are many more we would love to get out including Roco and Smiley, both great dogs with great characters. But space is limited and forever homes hard to find, and most dogs we take out of the shelter, end up coming with very large vet bills.
We have finally got permission to take down and re-build the barn at our house, this will house maybe 3 nice indoor dog pens. It will be a long process to do but be worth it in the end
We also spent 4 days at the Sliven Spayathon working along side a team of vets from Romania Animal Rescue, neutering 231 dogs and cats over the course of the campaign. Great experience and learn loads to take away to start organising our own campaigns.