A paradox happened in Sredets Municipality – a woman who shelters and takes care of stray dogs received a prescription that she have to move them from the property in Debelt, which she inhabits, against the background that the local administration takes almost no care to deal with the problem.
Ivayla Zhekova received the document on April 3, which was preceded by a check on Friday. She explained to Iskra.bg that the property belongs to a German organization that looks for homes for domestic animals, pays for their castration, and because of this, according to documents, it is not registered, but she is adamant that the animals who live there are cared for every day. they are social and not aggressive.
„In Burgas, I look after my father, who is sick. I work. However, every day I go to the animals, take care of them. The order is to move the dogs as my permanent address is not there.“
According to her, before she got it, there were 10 dogs in the house – 2 adults and 8 a few months old. The report to Sredets Municipality was made by Mayor of Debelt Vanya Angelova. On this occasion Zhekova said:
„Her behavior was disgusting. She came, opened someone else’s door – the dogs were going out on the street. I was shocked. In front of the policemen she said – „I hope the dam will break and the dogs will drown“. I have no words.“
The victim added that the dogs were tied up and were not allowed to roam freely.
The adult dogs were already moved on Friday. Today, she is going to look for a new home for the babies as well.
„I told them back on Friday, ‘OK, if the dogs are bothering people so much, we’re going to move them.“
Zhekova is adamant that she will „attack“ the prescription, she will not leave what happened like this and will lodge complaints with Sredets Municipality about the stray animals:
At the same time, „Animal Hope Bulgaria-Burgas“ published the prescription, outraged by it. In less than 24 hours, the post garnered dozens of comments. A woman says that for several years she has been constantly reporting to the Municipality of Sredets about a variety of stray dogs, but according to the mayor, they were pets and not once since 2019 has a similar protocol been drawn up. Then she added:
„In addition, since 2019, I have been submitting signals to the Bulgarian Food Safety Agency /BFSA/ due to the lack of a spay/neuter program on the territory of the Municipality of Sredets and there is still not a single neutered dog there, under the pretext that stray dogs are domestic, and there are no stray dogs to be neutered!“
„I live in Sredets. Stray animals have increased quite a bit in the last few months, but there are still many pets wandering around forlornly. The municipality was supposedly looking for volunteers to catch the stray dogs to be neutered. Alas, it was only to wash their hands. There is not a single neutered stray dog in the town of Sredets. I tried to be a volunteer, but of course I was rejected,“, the woman added.
„This is the first time I see an order from the Municipality of Sredets – the mayor was concerned about the eaten woman in Dolna Oryahovitsa and now his goal is to move his dogs gathered in a site outside the territory of his municipality, am I thinking correctly?“ (…) I read the regulation a bit. There are some illegal texts in it. It’s good to try to knock it down, and the mayor will become a little more dialogic,“, another woman said.
According to the residents of Sredets, Mayor from GERB, Eng. Ivan Zhabov, is not dialogic and does not take adequate measures to solve the problem of stray dogs.
They fear that a similar case could occur as in Dolna Oryahovitsa, where a woman died after being mauled by dogs. Some of them are even calling for a protest to make their voices heard and take action to tackle the problem.
The Iskra.bg team remains open to all parties involved in the case to speak out.
