FOUR Labradors that were left to starve in an empty house after the tenant fled back to Britain are recovering from their ordeal at the Argos animal shelter in Ormedia.
Police called in animal welfare officials after the landlord discovered that his tenant had left unannounced, leaving the dogs locked in the house.
Stella Stylianou from Argos thinks the dogs could have been caged in for as long as two weeks.
“This is a disturbing case; these are beautiful, tame friendly dogs. I simply cannot understand how someone, who has obviously loved and taken care of these dogs, can do something like this. Why didn’t they call animal rescue or us?” she wondered.
Even more heartbreaking is that the Labradors with their placid nature would have remained silent in the house in the hope their master would return.
“The dogs would have been very patient and sat quietly without making a noise … just waiting for their owner, that why it has taken so long to discover them,” Stylianou told the Sunday Mail.
Animal rescuers think all four survived their ordeal by drinking toilet water and passing the time chewing furniture and cushions, which were scattered around the floor. From the empty bags of dried dog food in the house, it appears the dogs’ owner had at least left some food for his pets.
Despite their horrific ordeal, the dogs, named Horace, Tara, Kara and Puppy, were all in excellent condition and delirious with delight when she and her team arrived at the property at 07.30am on Thursday morning.
“They were craving for human contact; they were just so starved of it.”
Stylianou said this was amongst the worst cases encountered; saying that the outcome could have been horrific had the dogs remained undiscovered for much longer.
"It was an incredible act of cruelty. If a neighbour hadn't heard them barking and called the police they would have eventually starved to death."
Argos confirmed that Dherinya police are investigating the case and trying to locate the British tenant.
Last year the Sunday Mail revealed that record numbers of Britons were packing and not only kissing goodbye to their life in the sun, but their pets as well
Despite UK's reputation of being a nation of animal lovers, British expats were accused of being the main culprits behind the growing scourge of pet dumping in Cyprus.
On a more positive note, Argos have reported a decline in pet dumping in the past quarter, with only one case on their books.
Stylianou partly blames the bureaucracy surrounding exporting animals from Cyprus for the horrific spate of dumping last year.
Shipping a dog to the UK can take up to eight months, with a pet passport required, a series of blood tests and course of injections and then finally the actual transportation.
A similar picture emerged elsewhere after the credit crunch, with the number of unwanted pets abandoned by expats and left to starve soaring in Spain, Dubai and Bahrain.
http://www.cyprus-mail.com/cyprus/aband ... e/20100124
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