The challenge of rehoming stray dogs

Lucky is one of many unwanted dogs in Cyprus abandoned to roam the streets, left to fate, to maybe live, maybe die. Some are hit by cars, some are shot or euthanised, others die of hunger or illness and the luckier ones end up in shelters with a chance of being adopted.

At the moment, Lucky is in the backyard of a house in Peristerona, rented by a Romanian single mother of two girls, aged ten and two.

Lucky was initially befriended by the ten-year-old girl.

He is a big, 41kg black dog, no older than three, and had been seen roaming Peristerona with two other smaller dogs for two months.

Adina said traps had been set to catch the dog, but it had proved impossible.

“You couldn’t get close to it,” she said.

Adina, who has three dogs of her own, has been having problems with the neighbours since Lucky came to stay, and they all react at the sight of Lucky.

“The dog is quiet. It is good with cats and other dogs and is calm around children. It doesn’t bark or bite and it shies away from people,” Adina said.

She added that someone asked her if Lucky was her dog and, when she explained it wasn’t, “he said he would call the police to shoot it”.

In desperation, Adina contacted the Cyprus Mail to help her find a family to adopt Lucky.

After the intervention of the Cyprus Mail and the president of the union of communities Andreas Kitromilides, the community leader of Peristerona assumed responsibility and the dog was taken to the vet at the expense of the village council.

Lucky was neutered, vaccinated and dewormed, and given a parasite repellent, before being returned to Adina last Saturday.

“What has been done for Lucky, must be done for all strays,” she said.

Peristerona community council president Pantelis Kakoullis told the Cyprus Mail that “the dog was wandering around the community.”

“It is a big dog. People were afraid of it. Adina took it in. We agreed to help as much as we could. A precondition for the dog to be adopted was that it was neutered, so we took it to the vet. We undertook the expense,” Kakoulli said.

He did point out, however, that some of the expenses on various occasions are covered by individuals.

Efforts to find a forever home have not yet been successful and Lucky will be handed over to 2nd Chance Dogs, a non-profit dog rescue and rehabilitation organisation, once he has fully recovered and been administered his prescribed course of antibiotics.

Lucky’s journey highlights a long-standing problem that no one will deal with.

With the voices demanding the dogs be given shelter and care becoming louder by the day, the solution boils down to funding.

“We want help from the state. The communities don’t have the staff or the know-how,” Kakoulli explained.

Adina said, “There should be a shelter in our area we could take these dogs to. Vets won’t deal with them either. The thing is, everyone needs to become involved in the issue, otherwise nothing will be done. We don’t know what happens to the stray dogs in the communities. If we hadn’t taken Lucky in, he would have been dead by now.”

In the absence of infrastructure for a shelter, Kakoulli said “we are trying to find people who can adopt the dogs.”

“The issue of stray dogs is a big problem for all communities. Some of the dogs are large, some move in packs and become dangerous, some come from the north, some communities have farms with livestock and dogs have been known to kill animals.”

He said an effort was underway with the local authorities in the area to create regional shelters.

“We already had a meeting and we are waiting for specific spaces and we will participate too. The state will partially fund this effort.”

Meetings are also happening with the environment commissioner and the communities have presented their views.

Lucky is so used to the life of a stray, that Adina has been having trouble training him to walk on a lead. He also whimpers at night.

“He needs to go to a home that will love him, look after him and train him,” Adina said.