Moscow's thousands of stray dogs have something to wag their tails about — animal rights activists say the city has dropped a plan to round the dogs up and ship them to a camp far outside of town.

Animal rights activists and Russian celebrities had been pressuring the city to abandon the plan, which they said would endanger the dogs by placing them in an environment where diseases would run rampant. Some had compared the planned facility to a concentration camp for dogs.

Natalya Yunitsyna, head of The Hope Bringers charity, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the deportation proposal was now off the city's agenda.

“We're very pleased that we've won a small victory here,” she said.

Moscow city government was expected to endorse the plan Tuesday but the session's minutes, posted online, do not mention the proposal.

The mayor's press office was unavailable for comment, and city hall officials would not confirm the report.

The Russian capital has an estimated 26,000 stray dogs, some smart enough to ride escalators and trains on the subway and others who intimidate or attack humans.

The controversial plan would have gotten rid of the dogs by sending them to a camp in the Yaroslavl region, some 250 kilometres northeast of the city. But activists staged a campaign to oppose the deportation, collecting nearly 2,000 signatures of prominent artists and musicians against the plan.

Moscow has spent some 1.3 billion rubles on dog shelters, sterilization, and other programs to deal with the city's stray population between 2008 and 2009, but critics say much of the money has gone unaccounted for.

The next thing activists will be demanding is an independent body to advise city hall on dealing with strays, Ms. Yunitsyna said. Activists will also push for taxes and oversight over dog breeders, who they believe to be “a key source of new strays,” and promote more sterilization among Russian pets.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/03/01/international/i062147S94.DTL

Well, much as I love animals, I think they should have done something. I live in Moscow, and believe me, those dogs are a problem. Some of them live in packs in public parks, and many of those are aggressive, and they do bite. People have been injured, mauled, and in at least two cases, killed, by street dogs in Moscow. In Izmailovsky Park, was a pack of 34 (!) street dogs, including big ones. This is near a school, a kindergarten, and a amusement park, an area where there are lots of small children around. Last year, after a 8-year old boy was bitten on the leg, some local men got their hunting rifles, went into the park, and shot most of those dogs. Later, when the bodies of the dogs were inspected, they found many of them had rabies! The animal activists may outrage all they want, but those things are a nuisance and a danger. That the government bent over to them here is not good IMHO Those dogs NEED to go.

This is on our market


Sure, they may look cute

Until they start getting their teeth into you



They are everwhere

This is near the bloody Kremlin!

On Manezh Square... Again, right by the Kremlin


I respect animal rights people, but they've picked the wrong cause this time. These things are noisy, dirty, they smell bad, and some of them are dangerous. Again, these dogs need to go.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075913/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_the_Animals

I'd have to agree with you Prapor, we all love animals, but when they are a danger to the health and safety of people something should be done.

What I did notice, was that the one's in the photos all look to be reasonably well fed and in good health, they must have a good source of food and shelter in winter.

A bit like Bucharest in that way.
They had a plan to kill the dogs and the EU went apes**t about it. Then they asked which European country would like to have them instead. No takers.

All of this poverty stuff going on, and the dogs are running loose....
Things that make ya go "hmmm".

Originally Posted by Hmmm

All of this poverty stuff going on, and the dogs are running loose....
Things that make ya go "hmmm".

Yeah... We are not Koreans, man (no offense Seaboy if you read this )

Originally Posted by A Can of Man

A bit like Bucharest in that way.
They had a plan to kill the dogs and the EU went apes**t about it. Then they asked which European country would like to have them instead. No takers.

Pretty much. Street cats are at least somewhat useful, as they help keep the mouse and rat population under control. Dogs just bark a lot. And as I said, they do bite. A friend of mine works at a factory in Zelenograd, he lives, as most of taht factory's workers, in one of three apartament buildings that are across a forested park from the factory. Workers have to walk through the park every morning. And there is a pack of around 13 to 15 'wild' dogs in there. He says they have had 7 people already bitten, including a pregnant woman. The director of the factory says he will send their security guards to shoot the dogs, unless the prefecture government does something first, and the animal activists are, as always, protesting

Originally Posted by senojekips

I'd have to agree with you Prapor, we all love animals, but when they are a danger to the health and safety of people something should be done.

What I did notice, was that the one's in the photos all look to be reasonably well fed and in good health, they must have a good source of food and shelter in winter.

It is the babushki who feed them, the old women.

In Russia, children mature early. Many marry and start own families at 17 or 18, and leave the parental household. Most then only get in touch with their old ones if they need something, like to watch the children, while they are at work or somewhere, maybe the kindergarten is closed or something.

There are few institutions for the elerly and those that are there, you have to be a damn heartless bastard to put your parents there.

On top of this, women outlive men, on average, by 12 years (life expectancy for men is 62 years average, for women - 74 years). So, what you have is old women on benches outside apartament buildings. They do two things mainly

1.) Gossip, since they seem to know everything about everyone in their building (and hence make a valuable tool for police)

and

2.) Feed local 'wildlife' including street dogs.

As a result, you see many strays starting to hang out near apartaments, sleeping in children's playgrounds...


The grandmas are their biggest defenders too. The dogs and cats provide them company and do not just leave them like their own children had.

I wasn't talking about Koreans, Prapor.
Food is still food. Be it a cat, a cow, a dog or a deer.