Outrage over ‘animal torture’
AN ALSANCAK resident has spoken of her shock after discovering a dog “caged up, living in her own faeces”.
Jena Unwin said that she was out for a walk with her partner on Tuesday when they came across the Dogue de Bordeaux just up the road from Gepaz Yapı Market.
She shared images on social media of the caged dog with an empty food bowl and an empty water bowl that has collected a thick layer of moss.
The couple went home to fetch the dog some food and water, “which she finished in almost 30 seconds” Ms Unwin wrote.
“While there, the ‘owner’ turned up and said she gets fed once a day and let out for half an hour to walk around when the husband gets home from work, and that she has nothing to do with the dog.
“She has absit/fluid sac on both her back legs and sores on her elbows where she’s been sitting in the same position all day.
“We asked the woman if she would give the dog up and she said she doesn’t care so the husband would need to approve it.”
Ms Unwin made a plea for help asking for the “right avenues to take” to get the dog “either cared for, or rehomed”.
She told Cyprus Today that a municipality official had told her that “they probably won’t help”.
Commenting on the incident, Golden Paws Association vice president Ülkü Cürcioğlu told this paper that Alsancak Municipality should “take the dog and give it to animal organisations if they don’t have a shelter, even though every municipality must have a shelter, it’s required of them”.
“This is of course a case of animal torture,” she said. “Imagine if we were locked up in a cage with no food or water . . . this animal – its kidneys – do not get water; its stomach is empty and it may even be eating its own faeces. This is criminal.”
Ms Cürcioğlu added that there are “three to four” dogs in a similar position that have been reported to the association in the last few days.
“Three Labradors are suffering from the same problem, locked up in the same cage, so people reach out to us . . . and they should,” she said.
“It’s the municipality that holds the legal authority to go to the home and issue penalties, and also to rehome dogs. They can ask non-governmental organisations to cooperate by helping to rehome too.
“Girne Municipality and Lefkoşa Municipality are always helpful in these situations. We associations have no authority to go into other people’s property to help these dogs.”