Our daughter tells us that Dobrinishte is known as the town of barking dogs and I must admit that is all you hear. As you walk past houses often a dog starts and as you lie in bed at night you can hear them barking to each other it often reminds me of the book "Starlight Barking" where the dogs communicate with each other to rescue some pups. Strangely, it is not annoying and you soon become used to it, although it is annoying when it sets Stella, our daughter's dog off.
There are also a lot of dogs wandering the streets, these don't tend to bark but will either follow you or run away. Some of the dogs have owners but they are just allowed to roam, others are homeless.
In Bulgaria, stray dogs are a problem as they tend to breed producing the next generation of homeless pups but also some dog owners can't afford to get their dogs neutered so again there are unwanted pups. There is a government scheme to neuter stray dogs but some areas are not so good as others at actually doing it.
When we reached our daughter's house we were met by a happy Stella, pleased to see visitors, then a large golden retriever rounded the corner, that was a surprise didn't expect to see him but it was a familiar face. The retriever is called Jack and was being looked after while his owners were on holiday. Then wandering out of the house came a little fur ball, so small it looked like a cat had coughed it up. Meet Monty the rescue pup.
It just so happened, it's weird how things work out that Stella needed to go to the vet. Our daughter uses the vet in Blagoevgrad which is a long drive away but she knows they do the job properly. As she drove along the busy road she saw dead pups lying by the roadside which had just been abandoned to their fate. Then suddenly a little head popped up, so she stopped the car, picked up the pup, checked to see if there were any others still alive in the area, which there wasn't and continued to the vet.
At the moment there is a Bansko Dog Sanctuary group which our daughter is involved in but they have limited housing for dogs as they don't have their own building . Any dogs found are put into foster homes , these were all full up so Monty ended up staying at our daughter's .
Relaxing after our long drive, the bags are still unpacked.
Now, I did say all you hear is dogs but you don't , you also hear goats, sheep and horse and carts which regularly go up and down the street. These goats live across the road and are waiting to get into their yard after a day wandering the fields. A lot of the homes have a few goats and sheep which are taken down to the shepherd in the morning he walks them around for the day, so they can graze
then they are returned at night.
No comments:
Post a Comment