Dear animal lovers,

Here's a quick update on our Leonberg Maya, whose thieves were convicted again by criminal court last month and were ordered again to return our Maya. A detailed report (sorry, Dutch only) can be found here.

In short, Maya's thieves threatened to file appeal against the final decision (cassation - errors in the court procedure) if we would not accept their demands. The totally unadapted Belgian law system allows pet thieves to keep the stolen pets while court procedures are ongoing. This has been Maya's case for almost 2 years now. Yes, you read it well : Maya's thieves were already convicted in 2021 (and filed appeal), but were never forced to return our dog.

Maya's thieves demanded last month that the court's decision would not be notified to them by bailiff (which would cost them money and which would start the delay for the court's daily penalty payment of 50 euro per day for each day they wouldn't hand over Maya to us) BUT at the same time, they wanted to keep our Maya until February 22nd 2022. They would then hand her over to a veterinary, BUT only on the condition that the veterinary would not establish a (non)health certificate.

It turns out that our Maya has "some issues" which "potentially" would not allow her to be qualified as healthy ... No wonder, if you lock up and neglect a dog 24/7 for almost 2 years and feed her only old bread and never take her out for a walk or provide the slightest exercise or care !

Despite the fact that Maya's thieves acknowledged Maya's state of (non)health and despite the death threats they made to kill our Maya, and despite the fact that our Maya is still falsely registered in the name of her thieves in dogID (which in se allows to seize a pet immediately, as proven by the dog Barry, who fortunately, was returned to his lawful owner in just a couple of days), the Belgian animal welfare service Dierenwelzijn still doesn't see any cause to go pick up our Maya - not even an unexpected check-up. "It's only a couple of weeks more before Maya will be handed over, so there's no need to bother now ..."

The comment of law enforcement was : "We'll surely investigate when she turns out to be dead". 

The Minister of Animal Welfare Ben Weyts, who lost the last bit credibility with Maya's case, has simultaneously launched a huge PR campaign, claiming that animal neglect and animal abuse is "treated very swiftly and severely" in Belgium with "5 years jail and huge fines up to 1,6 million euro". Marc Pareit got a 0 days prison and 0 euro fine sentence. 

In the meanwhile, and despite 2 criminal convictions of the man who took her almost 2 years ago, our Maya remains locked up in her pee and poo. Thank you to all people who let us know they are praying for her.

We'll see what happens on February 22nd and let you know.

With love to you all,

Maya's mum Anke & Maya's sis Anaya