“TEMPORARY SHELTERS” IN VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 12 OF THE EUROPEAN CONVENTION   The new proposition to introduce the unknown concept of “temporary shelters,” approved by the Committee on Agriculture:   - violates article 12 of European Convention ¹ 125 by depriving ownerless animals of the humane treatment that is required for them   - violates article 5, paragraph 4 of the Constitution of the Republic of Bulgaria, which stipulates precedence of international over domestic norms   - provokes local councils to choose the scheme “temporary shelters,” which allows abuse of public funds at the expense of animal welfare   - stimulates reproduction through the removal of street dogs before their birth rate has been cut down, which means that the vacated environmental niches will be quickly filled by newborns and migrants – the problems will remain for both the people and the dogs themselves   - violates the rights of the citizens who have treated those animals humanely   - creates conditions for the escalation of social tension   - cripples the TNR (trap-neuter-return) method – a method which reduces the number of dogs, but which achieves temporary, local results if applied in selected municipalities only   (After a grace period, the neutered street dogs will be housed into shelters – once all the at-risk dogs in the community where they live have been rendered sterile. In the final stage of the TNR campaign, the stray dog population will disappear as a result of the absence of breeding animals.)