I have been so very fortunate to go on a fabulous trip to Bulgaria last month and I will be completely honest I wasn’t disappointed.
We chose Bulgaria as we wanted to go on a family ski trip it has been a long time since we had a break and it was certainly needed!
Skiing is in our blood, both myself and Craig were ski instructors many moons ago, in what seems like a past life, and we so desired to teach our kids how to ski from an early age!
Traveling from Sofia Airport in Bulgaria the poverty was immediately apparent. I was saddened to see the depressed ruined buildings, the sadness in the brickwork, and the obvious inability to restore these homes to what many would consider liveable conditions. On our 2-hour transfer to the ski town of Bansko, I witnessed several dogs either chained up or hobbling on 3 legs, coats overgrown and matted and extremely mangey-looking.
In England, dogs are considered sentient beings and any dog in the state that we witnessed would see the owners prosecuted, but in Bulgaria and other countries this is the sad norm for many canines and unfortunately their reality.
Once we reached the mountain resort of Bansko everything changed! The vibrancy the fresh air, the feeling of lightness, and happiness. On our first day exploring we wandered around to familiarise ourselves with the alpine town, I noticed many dogs without collars just blending in! Beautiful dogs, big dogs, medium dogs, Mountain dogs!
They interacted with each other just as dogs should and it was a pleasure to witness the social etiquette they had with each other without human interference. Two dogs in particular who looked almost related played in the snow and went scavenging for scraps of food that tourists had dropped. They were not bothered by people nor were they scared, aggressive, or intimidated they just existed in this symbiotic relationship of being free and living alongside us homo-sapiens, using us to their advantage.
Now, these dogs were not necessarily “homeless” “strays” or “abandoned” but they were left to their own devices during the day at the base of the gondola where everyone congregated in the morning to get up to the slopes ( at night I have no idea where they would go, or what they would do) “! Some dogs were sprayed, and tagged with ear tags much like those in a sheep, non that I saw running free had collars on, but they obviously belonged to someone or somewhere.
What I did love was seeing these dogs play together to interact with each other and people just left them alone (most of the time) at points people would approach them but the interaction was always on the dog’s terms, they would enjoy a loving scratch or would avoid the situation and trot on to where they needed to be.
People would be skiing with their dogs, dogs would be waiting patiently for their owners at the bottom of the mountain whilst they had a day up the slope, dogs waiting patiently for their owners outside of shops, and no sign that anyone was wary that someone may decide to take them home! They were very happy pooches indeed. However, many stray dogs in Bansko do require rehoming and a neutering program is essential to reduce the stray dog population to find out more you can click here
