TwitchyNoses originally came about because of a desire to help more homeless, injured and neglected dogs in Bulgaria, to try and make some small difference in a country that has a terrible stray dog problem and where animals are abused and mistreated on a daily basis and where there was very little help for the street dogs.

The charity was the idea of Rachel, who originally moved to Bulgaria in 2006. Immediately upon arriving she was adopted by an old dog and two cats that had been left at the villa Rachel had bought and was renovating. Not long after this a heavily pregnant Border Collie turned up at another building plot Rachel owned and made one of the old barns into her home and had 4 puppies. At only a few weeks old, one of the puppies was poisoned by something toxic on the building site and was rushed to the veterinary university for treatment. Luckily she recovered but Rachel decided it was best for all 4 pups and Mum to join her at the place she was living. In the meantime Rachel had also taken in another 5 month old puppy (Clio) found starving and badly beaten in a field. Unfortunately a few months after moving over, the old dog had to be put down as had been badly injured in several fights with other village dogs. When Rachel moved to her new house, the 6 dogs and 2 cats went with her. Two of the border collie pups were eventually taken to the Burgas municipality shelter for re-homing.

In the middle of January 2008, when it was snowy and minus 20, Rachel found a tiny puppy (Bobby) on the side of the road late at night. She took it in and soon it was growing into a massive dog, a part Karakachan (local sheep dog breed). One day not too long after, Rachel found a tiny emaciated kitten hiding under the car in her local town and this ended up going home with her. A few days later a very young kitten was thrown over her wall and that also became part of the ever-growing family.

Then in January 2009 Rachel decided to go and work a ski season in France. She took one dog with her and managed to re-home the Karakachan puppy and the two kittens to an English family in the north of Bulgaria. Rachel arranged for a Scottish couple to house sit and pet sit. Unfortunately this was a mitigated disaster and she returned to find her home had been damaged and one of the dogs and one of the cats stolen. Rachel initially starting fund raising for an organisation and shelter near the coast.

The Beginning of TwitchyNoses

In 2011, Rachel visited a couple of local Bulgarian shelters and saw first hand the conditions the dogs lived in and the lack of adequate medical care for many. The shelters struggled to re-home the animals, while more and more in desperate need of help were found on a daily basis. It was decided that the best option was to set up a small charity to try and raise funds and awareness for Bulgarian stray dogs and to distribute funds and supplies where most needed.

A constitution, based on the Charity Commission’s example constitution for a small charity, was put into place and TwitchyNoses officially became into being in January 2012.  TwitchyNoses is a not-for-profit organisation recognised as charitable by HMRC for tax purposes and has a dedicated charity bank account in the UK as well as a charity operated PayPal account. 

In April 2012 Rachel heard about the plight of a female dog and her 14 pups in the isolator (shelter) at Stara Zagora. She contacted the girl who was trying to rescue them and it was decided TwitchyNoses would try and help save and re-home mum and pups. The funds were raised to do all the necessary tests on the pups and take them to a private shelter. Unfortunately the pups all had Parvo virus and despite our best efforts all but 5 of the pups died.  Rachel then opened up her home and garden to the remaining puppies, as well as a number of other dogs and began fostering.

However,  as can often be the way, it soon became apparent that all was not as it should be with the people she had opted to help, money was being claimed for illnesses that the dog’s simply did not have, obstacles were put in the way of re-homing and the people involved seem to live well beyond their means. Rachel learnt a valuable lesson and moved on. 

Rescuing Dogs From All Over Bulgaria

Before long Rachel was responding to requests for help with street dogs and abandoned dogs from all over Bulgaria and was soon taking in dogs from the far reaches of the country.

Rachel was working hard to find private home adoptions for the dogs but then in 2013 one of her former rescues happened to attend a Doggy Day Care centre in Manchester and her rescue story became known. The owners of the Doggy Day Care centre were just starting out wanting to help rescue and foster dogs but as they wanted to do so in a non-kennel environment they were turned down by many places in the UK. They approached Rachel to see if they could help and in 2013 the first of many TwitchyNoses rescue dogs went there. In the winter of 2018 the rules for transporting dogs to new homes outside of Bulgaria changed and meant we could no longer re-home in the numbers we had been doing.

Bringing it Back to Local

In 2016 it was decided that due to the huge numbers of dogs needing help and limited resources and funds, TwitchyNoses would concentrate on mainly helping those in the local area and dogs in the nearby pounds.

A good working relationship was developed with the Kazanlak municipality shelter, helping re-home dogs from there where we could and helping raise funds for repa

irs and food. And we then started volunteering and helping at the Stara Zagora municipality shelter, taking out the very old and the very sick dogs. Over time Rachel’s home became a small sanctuary for the very old dogs to live out their lives.

Neutering & Our Own Clinic

With rules and regulations changing, Brexit and with many other charities now operating in Bulgaria and re-homing dogs, Rachel opted to concentrate mainly on neutering in the local area. It was her dream to open her own veterinary clinic to provide free neutering in the area and medical help to local street and village dogs and cats. In 2018 Rachel purchased a property in the municipality town of Maglizh and started talks with the mayor and local food agency (equivalent of DEFRA) to set up a veterinary clinic. A Bulgarian charity was set up (TheNeuterNetwork) to concentrate on this side of things. Renovations started and a Bulgarian vet was found to run the clinic and there was 18 months of meetings, paperwork, plans and all sorts. Unfortunately the builder paid to do the job stole over 20,000 Euros paid for materials and work and thus the dream of opening her own vet clinic collapsed. 

Not long after this, with the COVID-19 pandemic just starting in spring 2020, Rachel’s long term relationship ended and following a very dark few months, Rachel made the decision to move back to the UK and be closer to her family.  In November 2020 Rachel and 8 rescue dogs moved back to a smallholding in the North West of England. 

The Future, UK Rescue, Spanish Rescue and Bulgarian Rescue & Further Afield. 

Bulgaria

But this does not mean the end to helping dogs in Bulgaria. Rachel’s good friend Candy runs Little Angels Rescue, of which Rachel is also a Trustee and so TwitchyNoses will be supporting Little Angels Rescue based in the Smoylan district of Bulgaria, in the far south, near the Greek border. 

Spain

A few years back Rachel met Sam in Bulgaria. Sam set up her own dog charity there and Rachel and Sam teamed up on fundraising events, re-homing and all sorts. Then Sam headed off back to Spain, where she had lived before hand. Sam runs her own animal charity in Spain and has rescued dogs, pigs, alpacas, horses but now concentrates on running a sanctuary for old dogs, often those dumped in shelters. TwitchyNoses supports Silver Paws Sanctuary – La Cruz and goes across to visit and help the sanctuary as much as possible. 

UK

Once a little more better set up, Rachel also hopes to offer emergency foster for dogs in need at her smallholding in Cumbria and aid local rescues and shelters.  She has fostered a dog for the local RSPCA. 

Further Afield

In 2022 when war broke out in Ukraine, Rachel and Candy raised funds and organised for vans of food and supplies for both animals and humans to go into the country. They then spent a week visiting Ukraine and also shelters around Romania that had taken in dogs evacuated from Ukraine. 

It is hoped that as TwitchyNoses grows and develops, we can help support projects and organisations around the world.