On Wednesday night an 80+ year old Bulgarian man was attacked by a pack of stray dogs that live in and around the American College of Sofia. The Bulgarian news reports were that he was a professor at the American College. This however is factually untrue. It turns out that he is a professor he just doesn't work at ACS instead lives in the neighborhood <em>behind</em> the American College.

Needless to say, this created a lot of confusion at school on Thursday. The Bulgarian media had reported that this man was a male foreign teacher at ACS and as a result, all sort of calls were made to check in with the American teachers at school. We were all fine. Rumors swirled among the students and as I understand it, the media inundated administration with calls and interview requests.

As a whole, our community was lucky. No teachers were hurt although the majority of international teachers do live on campus and it could have been one of them. The 80+ year old man has not been so lucky. As of Friday he was still in critical condition after being mauled by the dogs.

This incident is shocking. <!--more-->

I don't live on campus but I have been privy to the pack of wild dogs that roam the school grounds. In the fall , I chased two wild dogs out of the first floor of the building I work in. The doors had been propped open because of the warm weather and the dogs came in apparently in search of food because I found them eating out of a garbage can still full from the lunch rush. These are bold dogs.

Another colleague of mine went home in the middle of the day for lunch and was chased into her house on campus by the same dogs. And a third colleague with little boys recounts having to throw rocks at the dogs who regularly circle their house.

The thing is, anyone who has spent time on campus has a similar story.

The wild part about this whole thing is the inability of anyone to act. The pack of dogs continues to grow. Our administrative team continues to reach out to the proper city authorities and nothing of note happens. We're being terrorized by dogs. The school has been reporting these incidents steadily and consistently.

In the mean time, these dogs have babies and the babies have babies. Over the last three years at ACS I've seen at least two generations of these dogs grow up. Sure not all of the babies make it but enough of them do. The best the city seems able to do is to offer to serialize the dogs. This is something that is pretty clearly not working or the pack would not be growing.

In my mind, what's most appalling is that it took such a serious escalation of events for anyone to pay attention. It's been a serious problem for the last year as documented by this <a href="http://www.acs.bg/NewsDetails.aspx?cat_id=1&amp;news_id=277" target="_blank">ACS press release which includes a copy of the letter to the mayor of Sofia municipality Mrs. Jordanka Fandakova</a> (with incoming number from the Sofia municipality 2100-386 (1) 09.12.2011.) A letter which I'd like to note was signed not only by our ACS president but also by all department heads working at the Ministry of Interior Affairs units. So in terms of physical space we are very close neighbors.

So here we are. On Friday the Sofia Echo <a href="http://www.sofiaecho.com/2012/03/30/1798422_pack-of-dogs-that-savaged-elderly-man-in-sofia-to-be-put-down" target="_blank">reported that the pack of dog will now be euthanized</a> however it seems a little late for that as this clearly what should have happened six months ago.