Why Is Macedonia Failing to Solve Its Stray Animal Problem?

Gaps in the legislation, extremely small fines, sluggish municipalities, irresponsible owners and, above all, a low level of public awareness about keeping pets and about stray animals. This is the shortest explanation of the problem of the thousands of stray dogs and cats on the streets of Skopje and every other city in the country.

The solutions could also be simple, if only examples from countries where the system works were used. However, like almost everything in Macedonia, solving this problem runs into all the usual obstacles: slow reaction, institutional inertia, disagreements over solutions and institutions without enough capacity, while cultural and sociological factors only add to the chaos as the problem keeps piling up over the years.

“We are a completely immature nation when it comes to keeping pets – to the responsibility of keeping a pet and what it means to keep one. Here it is still treated as a toy that we take for a few days for the children to play with, to sit tied up without food and water for days. The responsibility is not understood at all. I often draw the parallel: you buy a new car – do you need to register it, do you need to maintain it? It’s the same: registering a car is like microchipping a dog. It is your property. It should be known where it comes from, when you got it, and it should be recorded somewhere. You take the car for registration once a year, and you take it for servicing. There we’re talking about a material object, and here about a living being. So whatever people can do for cars or any material objects – maintain them and have that property recorded somewhere – should also happen for living beings, even more so. Here the situation is the opposite,” long-time animal protection and rights activist Meri Jordanovska tells Samo Prasaj.

Stray animals have recently become one of the main features of Skopje, and of almost every city in the country. The population of dogs on the streets – and everywhere people can take, dump and relocate animals – keeps growing, and solving the problem has not even begun. Daily posts about entire litters of small animals being dumped, pets being let loose on the street, domestic dogs breeding with the stray population and, above all, unregistered and irresponsible ownership are the creators of a problem that is taking on massive proportions.

The price of irresponsible ownership

Dogs simply don’t belong on the street. Dogs are domestic animals; they should not live on the streets – it is torment for them and a problem for the population. This is the starting point on which all parties involved agree: the Food and Veterinary Agency, the activists, and the Skopje shelter for stray dogs, Lajka.

But where exactly does the problem start? With irresponsible owners – and all our interviewees agree on this too. Unregistered pets kept in poor conditions, with no supervision over when and where they go out or whether they breed with strays, and entire litters of puppies dumped around cities. Then there is the problem of not understanding the responsibilities of keeping a pet. People get dogs, and when they realise what the obligations are, they simply let the dog loose on the street, or take it to another city or to the mountains and dump it.

“Only a rigorous law and only the highest possible fines for irresponsible ownership can overcome the problem of stray dogs in Macedonia,” says Jordanovska.

“No one wants stray dogs – not activists like me, who rescue them every day, spend our own money, collect donations and try to rehome them, and not those who aren’t dog lovers. There is no one who wants street dogs. The problem is that here there are no rigorous measures and fines for irresponsible owners, and irresponsible owners are the only reason we have such a large stray animal population. People are the reason we have stray animals, and as long as there are no fines for the person who takes a dog, keeps it for a while and then dumps it, or whose dog gives birth and who then takes the whole litter and leaves it in a box in the middle of the road, or who doesn’t microchip their pet so it gets lost and can’t be found… We have every possible breed of dog on our streets, something unheard of in any other metropolis. That can only be solved with fines. That is why I was very pleasantly surprised when the law was proposed requiring mandatory neutering. I see many citizens react strongly to it, but not everyone can advertise a litter of puppies on Pazar3 and sell them without paying tax and without anyone knowing where they end up. If someone wants to breed their dog, they should register as a breeder and pay tax. That is completely normal everywhere in the world, and that way an animal’s trail will be known – where it ends up – and if it ends up on the street, it will be detected and there will be an appropriate fine,” explains Jordanovska.

According to the Food and Veterinary Agency, there are 133,000 registered dogs in the country whose owners have microchipped them and entered them in the system. The key problem, however, is dogs that are not registered anywhere, their uncontrolled breeding, and finally giving them away to other owners – also without any record – or, in the worst case, dumping an entire litter.

And dumping pets is the hardest thing to control and sanction. There are many accounts of abandoned puppies and kittens, and social media are full of photos, but the problem is only recorded once someone finds them. There are very rarely direct witnesses to the dumping, and even when there are, the problem is where to report it. According to the not very precise legal provisions, it is the Food and Veterinary Agency, but the Agency is not a rapid-response institution like the Ministry of Interior, so even if inspectors come, they can neither identify the person who dumped the animals nor know whom to fine and how.

On social media we witness dogs being given away to other owners without any control, and entire litters being dumped

To prevent this, there must be a record of every animal, which is why microchipping pets was introduced as a legal obligation. But people simply don’t do it, even though fines are prescribed. According to activists, the solution is a pet police or municipal police with powers to check and record such cases. This should be the responsibility of municipalities, because under the Animal Welfare Law they are also competent and responsible for the stray population.

Neither chip nor fine

Microchipping pets is already a legal obligation, but it is neither enforced nor checked. Only four owners of unchipped pets were fined last year (2024). The Agency’s inspectors have no right to enter homes and check whether there is a pet and whether it is registered.

“In 2024, four misdemeanour payment orders were issued to pet owners under the Law on Identification and Registration of Animals, and one educational measure was carried out. Only extraordinary inspections were carried out because, under Article 79(1) of the Law on Inspection Supervision, official veterinarians are not authorised to carry out regular inspections of pet owners,” the Food and Veterinary Agency says.

Strengthening measures and fines is key. But at the moment, no new law or amendments to the Animal Welfare Law are in procedure. There are two legislative proposals currently on the table: one by the Food and Veterinary Agency, and another drafted through working groups involving several stakeholders, which was supposed to go through Parliament via MP Monika Zajkova, but in the previous legislature.

The law proposed by the Agency was drafted back in 2019. It even came before MPs for a vote, but was withdrawn – the Agency says it does not know why. Now the law is with the Secretariat for Legislation; it has to go through the whole procedure again, with modifications if needed, and go from the Government to Parliament again. The proposer of this law is the Ministry of Agriculture.

“The aim of the law is to strengthen responsible pet ownership – that is its primary goal. By adopting one provision, we expect its implementation to reduce the number of stray dogs. Keeping a pet capable of reproduction will be prohibited unless the owner registers either as a registered owner or as a breeding facility. So keeping pets capable of reproduction will be allowed, but it will be regulated by law, meaning they will have to be registered as some kind of entity,” Dimitar Terzievski from the Animal Welfare Department at the Food and Veterinary Agency tells Samo Prasaj.

“However, strengthening the principles of responsible ownership and the influx of new dogs onto the streets is a really big problem, and it can be solved in several ways – by raising public awareness, for which we have already run several campaigns, but in the end it is left to owners’ consciences. In the future, I think sanctions against irresponsible owners should also be strengthened. Unfortunately, the fines provided for in the current law are very low. As an Agency, we will insist that they be higher – draconian, in fact – so that in future we can prevent this side-effect of pets being abandoned. I believe fines should be increased for failing to identify a pet (not microchipping it) and for abandoning a pet,” Terzievski stresses.

The second legislative proposal, drafted with the involvement of associations, Lajka and MPs – with Agency representatives also taking part in the working groups – is more rigorous, with much higher fines, but it too failed to reach a plenary vote. This happened before the end of the previous legislature. Zajkova, who is still an MP, announces a new attempt to get the law onto Parliament’s agenda.

“The law covered both dogs and cats, as well as other animals, and also the use and abuse of animals for races, fights, games and the like. Although we can say that we currently have a fairly solid legal framework, like many other things it is not fully implemented. This legal solution went a step further in raising fines. The fine cannot be fifteen euros if you let your dog breed on the street or simply abandon it. There must be a microchipping system, there must be a system for where they end up. It exists, but in practice it isn’t really applied. Other countries, other European countries – let me start with Belgium, because I know the system there. There you can’t just breed your dog. You have to register that you will breed it, it has to be known where the puppies go, and they have to be checked. It’s not like here, where you round them up in a van and take them from Skopje to Tetovo or from Tetovo to Mavrovo,” MP Zajkova tells Samo Prasaj.

Both proposals prescribe drastically higher fines for irresponsible ownership and animal cruelty, but activists and the Agency disagree on exactly how ownership should be regulated – the principles and conditions for keeping unneutered pets and registering breeders.

According to the Agency, insisting precisely on this – a legal obligation for owners of two or more animals to register as breeders – will push owners to neuter their animals.

“The criterion for being a breeding facility will be having more than two females capable of reproduction – then you will have to be registered as a breeding facility. That’s how it is in the draft; whether it will pass, we don’t know. There is also EU regulation being prepared that will be binding on member states. At the moment it is also a proposal. Every EU country solves this problem nationally. Here the criterion will be more than two females capable of reproduction, and that makes it a breeding facility. In that case it will have to meet certain conditions set out in a rulebook, we will in some way approve those breeding facilities, and then monitor where all the litters they produce end up,” explains Terzievski.

This means that dog owners who keep one female, or one or more males, capable of reproduction will not be approved as a breeding facility in the classic sense, but will register as a registered dog breeder and will be subject to inspections by the Agency’s inspection services – whether they have litters and where they end up.

But Lajka says this doesn’t solve the problem; it merely legalises keeping unneutered animals. They disagree with most of the solutions in the law proposed by the Agency.

“To be honest, I’m not sure that we at Lajka or the activists have received the final version of the law drafted by the Agency. What we at Lajka agree with least are the provisions on breeding facilities, which we believe will be counterproductive. We need to curb the breeding of pets, not legalise it. Not everyone can or should be a breeder and freely breed their pet, given that many of the litters will end up either with irresponsible owners or on the street. Our proposals for the law, which were presented in the working group organised by MP Zajkova, concerned several key points,” explains Elena Piponska from Lajka.

Even if all sides align their positions, as usual here even the best law is hard to implement, and monitoring its implementation is even harder. This raises the question: even if all these rigorous measures are adopted, who will enforce them, and how?

The Agency says it has a solution for the control system; activists are sceptical given their experience of the Agency’s work so far.

“The Agency’s capacities are what they are; staff will certainly need to be strengthened, and the workload will surely increase. We did an analysis back when there were about 90,000 pets in the database. When you identify your pet, you have to enter whether it is neutered or not, so we can already do some analysis there. Even then we saw that if we go with our proposal that more than two females capable of reproduction will be the criterion for registering as a breeding facility, the system showed there would be around four thousand such entities. But that’s not terrible, because we already have practice in carrying out inspections for other animal species. The veterinary information system also includes cattle, sheep, goats and pigs, and we can likewise plan a certain number of inspections based on risk assessment – we can decide where our inspections will be and what percentage of those breeding facilities we cover each year. We will have a control mechanism,” stresses Terzievski from the Agency.

The Food and Veterinary Agency’s insufficient capacity, together with the lack of an overall strategy and the involvement of multiple institutions, means the problem keeps growing.

“The finger is pointed at the Agency, and it is a fact that it has few inspectors, but when we have a problem of such importance that has lasted so long, the state should create the conditions and allocate resources to solve it. So, to say that this year there will be continuous work on the stray animal population, with more inspectors engaged and an animal police formed if necessary. That was also foreseen in the proposed law – for municipal inspectors to issue fines – so the problem is tackled from several different sides. Nothing else solves this problem, because even if we had 150 Lajkas, one in every city, the capacity is what it is – 150 dogs. Maybe 10 will be caught in a day, and the very next day 15 new ones are let loose. And so we keep going round in circles. The only thing I doubt is whether this law can be implemented, given that here there are hardly any fines. Perhaps half of the people who have pets have not microchipped them at all, even though it is a legal obligation. So I think no vet should examine an unchipped dog,” says Jordanovska.

Why do municipalities ignore Lajka?

Municipalities are responsible for stray animals and must find a way to control the street population. There are 29 approved municipal shelters in the country, of which 26 are operational. Each municipality should prepare an annual programme and plan, having first estimated the dog population in its territory, and the plan should be based on that estimate.

“Several municipalities in Macedonia are actively working, adopting programmes and carrying out some kind of estimate of the number of stray animals. Unfortunately, some municipalities have not established such a system, and in future we will push for it through our inspection services, so that every municipality implements the law properly. As the legal obligations prescribe catch–neuter–rehome or return, all municipalities work on that principle, and we believe that if the problem is properly tackled this way, a drop in the number of dogs will be visible in the medium term, within two to three years,” explains Terzievski.

In Skopje, the only shelter is Lajka. To ensure it functions and to make things easier for municipalities – so they don’t tackle the problem piecemeal but through Lajka – the municipalities have contracts with the shelter and are supposed to pay a monthly fee. But since its opening, Lajka has faced problems cooperating with municipalities. With one exception, Gazi Baba municipality, all the others owe money to the public enterprise founded by the City. Lajka is constantly trying to resolve this situation.

“At the moment we are focused on this issue, trying to get in touch with ZELS (the Association of Units of Local Self-Government) so that some of our proposals can be put on the table and considered by them. Article 28 of the current Law on Animal Protection and Welfare clearly defines the competence of the municipalities, the municipalities in the City of Skopje and the City of Skopje to take action to catch and treat every animal found in a public space. So far we have made some attempts which, unfortunately, have not produced results. It is noticeable that recently, as the problem of stray dogs becomes alarming, some municipalities are improving their cooperation with the shelter,” Lajka says.

Almost all Skopje municipalities owe huge sums to Lajka

The total debt of all municipalities is 20,043,375 denars. Gazi Baba is the only municipality in the City of Skopje that regularly meets its obligations. Centar municipality is close behind, currently owing 500,000 denars. With Butel municipality, Lajka has concluded an agreement to settle debts from 2021, 2022 and 2023. Karposh municipality’s debt dates from 2022 and 2023. After 31 December 2023, when the originally signed contract expired, Karposh has had no contract with Lajka and is not taking any independent action of its own to solve the problem. Court proceedings are under way with Kisela Voda, Gjorche Petrov and Karposh municipalities over claims from 2022 and 2023.

The municipalities that do not cooperate at all, i.e. have no signed contract with Lajka, are Karposh, Shuto Orizari and Saraj. Municipalities are obliged to allocate 166,666 denars per month. When the enterprise was founded and the decision on inter-municipal cooperation was adopted, in line with the competences in Article 28 of the Law on Animal Protection and Welfare, it was envisaged that the ten Skopje municipalities would together provide 20,000,000 denars a year for Lajka’s operations.

The municipalities’ failure to meet their obligations is the number one reason for the enterprise’s poor financial situation, says Piponska.

This is how the problem looks from the perspective of institutions and activists. Citizens’ views are not far from this either. According to research commissioned by the Food and Veterinary Agency a few years ago, citizens believe that municipalities should solve the problem. According to the vast majority of respondents (85%), the municipality should be responsible for controlling stray dogs.

Citizens place responsibility for stray dogs with the municipalities

The survey shows that citizens locate the root of the problem in the same place as activists – irresponsible owners. But what makes it worse is that no one is actively working to solve it.

In the country, shelters operate under the “catch, neuter, rehome, return” system. Everyone involved agrees that in a country like ours, where the problem has been smouldering for decades and the number of stray animals keeps growing, this principle is currently the best accepted solution, applied in all countries with large street animal populations. Experts estimate that for this system to succeed, at least 75 per cent of females capable of reproduction in a given location must be covered and neutered within a short period, and the influx of new dogs must be stopped.

This content was produced by the Institute of Communication Studies.

Journalist: Katerina Gjurovski

Camera: Nake Batev

Editing: Fani Goshevska Zhivkovikj

Photos: Darko Andonovski

Related stories (in Macedonian):

Institutions turn a blind eye as dog fights carry on

The street dogs bark, the problem goes on!

Several people receive compensation for stray dog bites using the same photo

Who let the dogs out?

This article was translated from Macedonian using artificial intelligence (AI). The original Macedonian version is available here.