On 29 May this year, at around 18:30, a 68-year-old resident of the village of Dolgas in the municipality of Centar Zupa took a hunting rifle and fired at a group of stray dogs. One dog was left dead on the spot. The criminal complaint for "animal cruelty" was filed on 21 August.

Read those two dates again. Almost three months passed between the shooting and the complaint. This is not a complex case with an unknown perpetrator, hidden evidence or international cooperation. The village is small, the weapon is a registered hunting rifle, and the suspect is identified by initials and age.

The Debar police department announced there are grounds for suspicion that a criminal offence was committed and that further measures are being taken. The wording is flawless. The timing is another matter.

The Law on the Protection and Welfare of Animals exists. The offence of "animal cruelty" exists in the Criminal Code. None of that helped the dog in Dolgas, and the question for every case that follows is whether a complaint that arrives three months late functions as a deterrent at all.

Stray dogs are a real problem in rural areas and nobody is pretending otherwise. But the answer to that problem is the responsibility of the municipality and the veterinary services, not of a man with a hunting rifle. When an institution is absent long enough, somebody else decides they will be the solution - and that is the part no criminal complaint filed three months later can undo.