Sofia’s Stray Dog Problem Caused By Ex-guards?

This article outlining the ongoing problem of aggressive stray dogs in Bulgaria contains a clue as to perhaps why Sofia’s streets dogs are aggressive to the point of killing one man. A spokesperson for an animal rights group says that corrupt practices in the sterilization program to boost catching squads’ income have not helped but interestingly also points out that the economic situation has resulted in the abandonment of guard dogs from closed-down construction yards. Dogs trained to be aggressive to human strangers are unlikely to live peacefully in a large city full of unknown people. This combined with the role of facilitated aggression whereby dogs will follow the lead of other dogs’ reactions to people and you can quickly get a situation of intimidating packs of confrontational dogs. It is hard to imagine that these abandoned guard dogs form a high percentage of the city’s strays but it would only take a few to create enough of a problem for this to be presented as the norm in the media.

If it is the case then, rather than targeting all stray dogs, a relatively quick way to reduce the problem might be to identify the most immediately aggressive dogs and remove them from the streets thereby removing the trigger that sets off the other, less tempermental, strays.

This would just require some careful observation of the reaction of a group of dogs to being approached by a stranger. Which is the first dog to show signs of aggression? Such information is probably already known by people living in the area. Unfortunately, it would also require a genuine interest in solving the problem and lack of corrupt practices amongst the catching squads.