Action movie star Jean-Claude Van Damme is a guardian angel for one very sweet little pup.
The actor saved a three-year-old chihuahua puppy named Raya from being euthanized. It’s all due to issues with a passport between two different countries. We all know that dogs are precious and need to be protected at all costs. Looks like Van Damme did just that.
After Bulgarian owners sold Raya to a new family in Norway, officials refused to register her there. She had come to Norway on a fake Bulgarian passport. Norway tried to send Raya back to Bulgaria, but Bulgaria refused to take her. The European Union’s rules weren’t accepting of transporting live animals, after all.
Luckily, Jean-Claude Van Damme stepped in to save the day. He ended up leveraging his own social media posts to help persuade Bulgaria to end up taking the sweet little dog back.
“They made a mistake, the people who didn’t do the paper correctly,” Van Damme wrote. “But they cannot kill that little chihuahua.”
Otherwise, Raya would have been put down, under Norway’s current legislation. Pets are a red flag for eastern to western and northern European imports in terms of illegal trafficking. Without correct papers, Raya would have become another casualty. That’s not something anyone would have wanted to happen. But the law isn’t built to protect animals, unfortunately.
Luckily, due to Van Damme’s kind heart and urging via social media, Raya lived to see another day. The dog is going up for adoption in Bulgaria so she can start looking for her forever home. Hopefully, Jean-Claude will see fit to share updates with everyone about what the little darling is up to.
[H/T: The Guardian]
