Sarajevo, where some people used to go hungry in order to feed their pets during Bosnia’s war, today shows little sympathy to stray dogs, killing them in their thousands each year.
But a group of animal-rights activists hopes to improve the plight of pooches in the Bosnian capital, having finally found support from official ranks to help their bid to offer dogs ”life instead of death”.
”I admit that it is a shame for a European country not to have solved this problem in a humane way,” the Sarajevo county minister for environmental issues, Zlatko Petrovic, said.
The Sarajevan government recently approved funding of about â,¬51 000 towards the first phase of setting up a centre where strays can be sterilised, kept and offered for adoption, he explained.
”The problem was that we were squeezed between citizens demanding us to remove dogs from the streets, without wanting to know how, and those who want to change the way in which the issue is dealt with,” he said.
Petrovic said the authorities in Sarajevo have been too busy dealing with their own economic hardship and other consequences of the country’s brutal 1992 to 95 war, and have thus ignored the problem for a long time.
But public opinion has now shifted, and the ministry is to open a tender this month for the best concept and location for the dog shelter.
Sarajevan authorities spend more than â,¬200 000 annually for the services of dog catchers, who kill more than 8 000 of the animals each year.
Many people report scary after-dark encounters with packs of stray dogs in downtown Sarajevo. However, only about a dozen of them report having been attacked and bitten each year.
But many people also expressed disgust at the gruesome sight of the officials rounding up the animals by trying to trap them with wire hoops in order to later euthanise them.
Petrovic plans to gradually reduce financing for the dog pound as the shelter and sterilisation programme advances.
”I would be the luckiest person in the world to see this happen,” said Petrovic, himself a devoted dog-owner.
Besides his enthusiasm, the driving force behind the move was the fierce public campaign led by SOS, a local organisation for the prevention of animal cruelty.
”The situation is horrible and must be changed,” said SOS activist Velimir Ivanisevic.
”Money should not be the problem. We just want the method of death to be replaced with the offer of life at the same cost,” he said.
Ivanisevic and a group of volunteers spend days trying to rescue injured street dogs and cats from the dog catchers and other hardships.
They are funded through donations and have only received â,¬3 500 from the local government during the past eight years.
Having no other option, the SOS volunteers house animals recovering from injuries at a facility of just 12 square meters, and those that are in need of particular care find shelter in their own homes.
Since 1998, SOS has helped more than 300 rescued cats and dogs find solace in Western Europe, where they were adopted, but only a few have been given homes in Bosnia.
”They are mainly old animals or those who had their limbs amputated after injury,” Ivanisevic said, while proudly showing photos of a partially paralysed dog with wheels attached to his rear legs while running in his new home somewhere in Western Europe.
”It hurts to see that we who suffered a lot, who personally experienced cruelty, now behave like this,” he said referring to the war that left up to 200 000 dead and saw some of the worst atrocities in Europe since the World War II.
”The people’s perception must change. We should have a higher level of consciousness. For a start, at least we are giving the dogs a chance to live,” said Ivanisevic. — AFP
