With a wide smile and a faithful heart, seeking physical contacts with passersby, the dog Vivaldi is looking for a friend who would take him by the leash and take him home.

Adoption Day in Sofia’s South Park on which the dog shelter in the village of Gorni Bogrov and the Ekoravnovesie municipal enterprise for animal rescue organized to show once again what love is about, has produced good results.

Sebastian has passed his exams with excellent marks and has received a pet certificate. Unfortunately the rest seven small dogs were not as lucky. They had been brought over with the hope that someone would be happy to take them home.

Natalia Ilieva does not part with the dog Vivaldi, his muzzle in her lap. She admits almost in tears that she cannot afford to adopt him.

“I do love dogs, and mine passed away. I want to have a new one, but not a purebred dog”, she adds. “I will adopt one with great pleasure after a while and I encourage many people to do so because there are many little souls needing love and care. Purebred or not – this doesn’t matter. What matters is the soul, and yes, a dog’s love is one of the purest.”

At the shelter in the village of Gorni Bogrov, 1460 dogs are waiting for adoptive parents. Thanks to campaigns like the lesson on love in South Park, over the past two years, more than 2,000 animals have found adoptive parents – at various events people learn about the shelter, participate in organized weekend walks and choose a dog for life, castrated, vaccinated and with an ID.

“People sometimes come over and adopt one or two dogs”, says Veselin Asenov, Director of Ekoravnovesie, on the occasion of the event in South Park. “It is however more important to acquaint them with animals and shelters, and make clear that not only purebred dogs can make good pets. Unfortunately we have mostly signals for abandoned dogs from the so-called fighting breeds (Pit Bull and Rottweiler), and we recently found a cardboard box with four puppies outside the shelter. So one of the goals of such events is to clarify the usefulness of castration and adoption of dogs from shelters as way to cut the population of homeless animals.”

German Rosaline Schmich has been living in Bulgaria for six years and has in the meantime supported the shelter as a volunteer. She wants to make people understand that there is no good reason to buy a purebred dog, because stray dogs make great pets.

“I’d like to see more people adopting a dog instead of buying one, but unfortunately, there is a trend of buying purebred dogs. People do this because they are not aware how many dogs have been waiting for someone to adopt them in shelters. Maybe they also believe it is not reputable to walk a dog which is not purebred. And though we should not attribute human qualities to dogs, I know from experience that adopted dogs are absolutely noble in character. They follow us, acquire good hygiene habits easily and create no problems whatsoever. They are simply different because they feel grateful.”

Ioana Spasova knows that perfectly well as she hugs her Anabelle, a snow-white beauty with a chopped off ear.

“I have always wanted to adopt a dog but I couldn’t find the right shelter unless friends took me to Gorni Bogrov. There I saw the most stressed out and scared animal which would not go out of her cage. Then I decided this would be my dog, though it was not socialized, but it was love at first sight. I came to love her and I knew she would learn all important things. Well, I was right. Anabelle is shrewd, I have no problems with her; she can sit down, extend her paw, walk on a leash, and besides she is extremely kind.”

English Daniela Konstantinova