ohmidog!

It has been nearly four years since Bosnia passed a law banning the killing of stray and wild dogs, but as of this year only one city is respecting it, according to the Associated Press — Sarajevo.

As a result, Sarajevo has become both a dumping ground and, relatively speaking, a safe haven, with people from around the country dropping homeless, stray and wild dogs on its streets.

The law was passed amid a sharp rise in dog killings, but it was largely ignored because the government provided few alternatives, like shelters and sterilization clinics.

In March, Sarajevo became home to a new city-funded dog shelter that also performs sterilizations.

Animal protection advocate Amela Turalic runs the shelter, and she and her team of animal lovers respond to calls to pick up strays, who have been increasingly arriving from other areas

Bosnia remains divided along ethnic lines, and different parts of the country deal with strays differently. Despite the national ban against slaughtering dogs, some local governments have passed laws contradicting it.

In Sarajevo, it took Turalic’s teams three months to get the problem of strays under control last summer with the shelter and sterilizations.

“But then we started noticing ‘new faces’ on the streets daily and people started telling us about overnight deliveries,” she said.

Not everyone in Sarajevo is happy about that, and some don’t think Sarajevo — the one place doing something about the problem — should be getting overwhelmed with needy dogs because of it.

Sounds a little like another country that once welcomed outsiders.

As Turalic sees it, those from other cities who drop off dogs on the streets of Sarajevo aren’t abandoning their own pets, just trying to give a stray a better chance of surviving.

“Let them come,” she said. “People do this with best intentions.”

(Photo: Amel Emric / Associated Press)

Citing a budget shortfall, Los Angeles animal control officials say they will end a voucher program that enabled residents to get low cost spaying and neutering for their dogs.

The program started last year, when the city voted to require all Los Angeles dogs and cats be neutered or spayed, with the exception of show animals, law enforcement and service dogs, and those deemed too old or sick for the surgery.

L.A. Animal Services General Manager Ed Boks says the agency was compelled by the city to make up a budget shortfall of $414,000. Ending the spay and neuter vouchers will save about $150,000, he said.

Animal welfare advocates, and some city council members, are displeased with the decision to end the program, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Councilman Dennis Zine’s office said he ”strongly opposes the recent decision made by the department to halt the voucher program” and will move later this week for the council to reinstate the program.

Mandatory pet sterilization is back on the table in Chicago, and this time the City Council sponsor says he expects his proposal, revised to lessen the fines, to win approval.

Under the new proposal from Alderman Ed Burke, a third offense for not neutering or spaying a pet before they turn 6 months old would trigger a fine of $100 per month. His earlier proposal called for a $500 fine.

A mandatory spay/neuter law was proposed last summer, and former TV game show host Bob Barker came to Chicago to support it, saying it would cut down on the numbers of stray dogs and cats euthanized each year.

But the Chicago and Illinois State Veterinary Medical Associations opposed the measure, saying decisions about sterilization were best left to pet owners and their veterinarians, according to the Chicago Tribune. The proposal never came to a vote.

The proposal is expected to be voted on at a committee meeting Thursday.