Hundreds of homeless animals at Moscow’s stray dog shelters and pounds are waiting to be adopted

By Adelaida Sigida _

THE MOSCOW NEWS

Many people dislike talking about stray and wild dogs just as they dislike talking about death. Yet there is nothing you can do about death, while stray dogs can still be helped. Oftentimes a person who has at least once visited an animal control pound gets this help-homeless-animals bug. Such are my new acquaintances.

I met them when I adopted a stray dog from a shelter. And then I just could not restrain myself. I became a regular visitor to the Pes i kot animal charity site on the Internet where 40 activists (a drop in the ocean for such a big city as Moscow) hang out in the chat room around the clock. Yet even these concerned citizens were not able to find each other until the end of last year.

A “Home Shelter”

Care for homeless animals is a syndrome similar to alcoholism or drug addiction. Most often it affects single, lonely women. It is easy for them to adopt cats and dogs: They have no family who might raise objections. Dozens of animals live in apartments owned by such women. Nina, a friend of mine, is not one of them. She was miraculously able to limit herself to just two cats. Now she visits apartments known as" "home shelters." This nice expression is a euphemism for something quite terrible.

For example an old woman in the town of Lybertsy just outside Moscow keeps about half a hundred cats and two dogs in her cramped apartment. When a group of activists visited her apartment/shelter, they were appalled to see kittens’ bodies gnawed by other animals lying on the floor amid the feces and urine with severely undernourished cats crying out of hunger. The old woman said she was doing her best to get food for her animals, spending whole days begging in an underpass with two cats and a handwritten plea for help around her neck. The activists offered to provide food for the cats. It turned out that the old woman did not even have a stove: all that she had in her kitchen was a sink and a bench. When they offered to put her dogs up for adoption, she refused to let them go.

Or take another woman: Her name is Svetlana. She kept 117 cats and five dogs in her one-room apartment. To the activists' offer to help get her animals adopted the woman locked herself up and refused to talk. And so she sits there with her hungry, miserable cats.

Unfortunately, the hapless creatures are only empathized with by other equally unlucky humans. Not so long ago, an old man died, leaving five little dogs. No one wanted to adopt them, and so eventually they had to be sent to the dog pound.

As a matter of fact, homeless dogs and cats in Moscow are no longer put to sleep, but this does not apply to pets whose master has died: surely they cannot be let out into the street.

Sponsorship

It is very, very difficult to accommodate an orphaned animal. First of all, there are no rehabilitation programs for homeless dogs. Most of the shelters are privet outlets. It is unknown how the animals are treated there. When this reporter wanted to adopt a dog from one such shelter, most of the city’s animal control pounds immediately turned me down, saying their dogs were not the right kind for me and even refusing to show them. I could just barely find a pound in Moscow’s northern district of Beskudnikovo where my intention to adopt a dog was welcomed. Yet many private shelters are not concerned with dog welfare but with sponsorship that they prefer to accept in hard cash.

“The owner of this particular shelter rejects out of hand the dog food, drugs, and bowls that we bring. She says she only accepts financial assistance,” Irina, a Pes i cot activist who oversees one private animal shelter, says.

Or take another situation: dogs at one animal control pound in Moscow are not given anything to eat or drink because otherwise they will shit and foul everything up, while the pound's director is a fiend for cleanliness. Pes i cot activists regularly come to this pound at night, when all employees go home, and throw dry food across the fence. There is no way, however, to supply any water to the poor creatures. Dogs at this pound die within a week, but before they do, they get neutered: the pound faithfully observes the city’s dog sterilization program.

Ruthless

There are of course centers where stray animals are treated well. For instance, at the animal control pound in the Northern Administrative District, located near Petrovsko-Razumovskaya Metro station. Its employees say there are no directives today to catch and sterilize absolutely all dogs. A team of dog catchers is only sent out if a formal demand has been filed that a certain pack of dogs in a particular area be taken care of. It is unknown what happens to the dogs once they have spent some time at the pound. Employees assured this reporter they are then placed at various shelters, but all shelters in Moscow are packed, bearing the sign: “No Dogs Are Accepted Here.”

Sterilization is an extremely ruthless act. At the animal control pound, I saw two dozen bitches, sick and wretched looking. Each of them had their side cut and sutured, so they sat in a bizarrely twisted position, moaning and whining every five minutes. A person who has once heard this cry will forever be haunted by it.

//Only a homeless dog knows what teal love and devotion is. True, its eyes WILL FOREVER REMAIN SAD //

There are dogs of every color and description here — fluffy black, shaggy white, smooth-coated brown, etc. The moment they see people, they stop their blood-chilling whining, stand up on their hind legs against the grate, and push their cute little muzzles through the iron bars toward humans. It seems as if they beg for adoption, but alas, there are very few takers. At the very best one person a week will come and pick up a homeless dog.

A piece of a dog’s gnawed lead – the symbol of master’s love – lies on top of a cage. This little shabby dog was brought in for sterilization from one of Moscow's courtyards — so that it could go on living there quietly but not reproduce anymore. It no longer runs toward people. It just lies as if it was dead. Perhaps it would really like to die. In a week it would be picked up and returned to the courtyard – back to its cardboard shelter, small and wretched. Or maybe it will just die, and that will be the end of it.

A smooth-coated red mutt sits in the next cage. It was denounced to the animal control service. But it does not as yet know about human treachery. It jumps against the grate, pushing its smart muzzle toward people, at the same time moaning and twisting on account of its raw, sutured right side.

There are several dozen animals here – big and small, hopeful and hopeless. Pes i kot activists strive to help them, pasting notices at stores and pharmacies around the city since they have no money to place ads in newspapers. So far these efforts have yielded very little result, however.

Plea for Help

Deep in the heart, almost everyone sympathizes with homeless dogs. Some of the most poignant scenes of films include a hero penetrating a dog pound and letting all the animals go, who run to their freedom, happy and free. In reality, a homeless dog is never happy. Every stray dog dreams of being adopted, and today this is quite a viable option since there are far more caring Muscovites than there are homeless dogs. It is only necessary to arouse their sympathy – for example, by taking schoolchildren to animal control pounds. This will be a shock for them, but a useful and sobering shock.

The Russian president might adopt some miserable creature from a shelter, and then people would follow his example by adopting more and more dogs. But the president already had a Labrador retriever; people ignore animal control pounds, while the Moscow city government spends large amounts of money on dog sterilization programs, but has yet to spend a single ruble on an animal adoption program. There is no such program in the first place.

What can an ordinary person do in this situation? Adopt a dog from a shelter or pound. A handful of kindly old women are unable to save all of Moscow’s cats and dogs even if they keep hundreds of them in their one-room apartments.

Homeless dogs are the most intelligent and kind creatures; they are rarely sick and they live long. I adopted one. My previous pet had lived with me for 17 years and I know what I am talking about. The new one is utterly selfless and so devoted to its foster family like no pedigreed dog can ever be. Only a homeless dog knows what real love and devotion is. True, its eyes will forever remain sad. MN

FACT BOX

For adoption, please contact animal shelters or control pounds (www.pesikot.org) or the organization's activists at 995-78-40 and 759-73-60. Dogs are available for adoption at the animal control pound of Moscow's Northern Administrative District (Metro Petrovsko-Razumovskaya) every day except Sundays, until 3.30 p.m., tel. [phone].

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