Actors put in word for homeless pets in Moscow.

MOSCOW, January 23 (By Itar-Tass World Service writer Lyudmila
Alexandrova) -- That pack of homeless dogs - very friendly and very
unaggressive - was well-known to many dwellers of a residential area in
southwestern Moscow. Each pet eagerly responded, when called by the name.

Some local people regularly brought them food all year round, and old
clothes in winter for the dogs to sleep on. Some even tried to find a
place for them in an animal shelter, but failed. Besides, the rumors told
about the shelters differed, and were not very pleasant ones. Some claimed
they were real concentration camps for dogs.
One day one of the most enthusiastic pet devotees broke the sad news.
People from a newly-built residential compound nearby had started
complaining and the animals were taken away to an unknown destination.
Then, some witnesses claimed they had seen the dogs shot.
In Russia there is no special law on the protection of animals, so
pets' fate is in the hands of humans passing by. The worst situation is in
big cities, where the local authorities do practically nothing to ease the
problem in a civilized way.
A group of Moscow celebrities - actors and singers - several days ago
addressed Moscow's mayor with a message to put in a word for homeless
pets, who, they claim, are often shot dead in cold blood in Moscow and
other megapolises.
The message entitled Open Letter in Defense of Homeless Animals of the
City of Moscow, published by Novaya Gazeta, runs, "On January 5, 2010 the
Khoroshevo-Mnevniki neighborhood saw a real massacre. Some rascal was
shooting homeless dogs - cold-bloodedly and professionally. To our common
regret such incidents in Moscow are regular occurrences. They are becoming
normal. Instead of being saved homeless animals are killed cruelly,
illegally and with impunity.
We are addressing the city authorities, the chiefs of the city police
and all people of good will with just one request. Do not let the evil
prevail either on the city streets or in our souls! Remember that all
unattended animals in the city appeared there through our fault. They are
to be helped, and not massacred!"
For addressing the problems related to the presence of homeless
animals in the city the authors of the message suggested introducing a
special office of animal rights commissioner in Moscow.
Per 1.5 million home pets and ten million city residents there are
25,000-35,000 homeless animals, according to different estimates.
Shooting stray dogs in Moscow is prohibited. According to the official
version, they are caught and taken to animal shelters, where they are to
be kept for their lifetime. As for dog shootouts, all such cases are to be
blamed on 'private', and consequently illegal volunteers.
Animal rights activist Andrei Pavlov told Novaya Gazeta that dog
catchers and hunters may use dithylinum, a poison that causes animals to
die in torment over several minutes. Or they may catch dogs for slaughter
and utilization.
"The 'butchers' work for cash, nobody controls them," says Pavlov.
"Official catching looks pretty odd, too. All dogs are squeezed into the
municipal shelters (there are a mere eleven of them - all overcrowded).
The place of the removed dogs is instantly taken by others, who keep
breeding and spreading disease."
The sole way of doing something about the problem of stray dogs is
sterilizing them and returning them to the place they were picked up. Such
dogs will be unable to breed, but they will be guarding their territory
and keeping other animals, say, foxes, mice, rats and other dogs, away. In
case of massive slaughter of stray city dogs they will begin to breed more
actively. Dogcatchers will provoke aggression.
The forum of the Dog and Cat website regularly publishes notes about
missing stray animals. On one of the biggest animal protection sites,
www.claws.ru such stories number dozens.
"Three days ago I saw a home dog shot at. Passers-by first heard a
blood-curdling cry of a dog. When they ran up to the animal, they saw
blood all over its body. The dog was unable to move. It has an owner. The
woman is disabled, and she used to let her pet out alone. The dog is now
at home, hind legs paralyzed. The women has no money to pay for treatment."
"I get phone calls and hear complaints every day," says the website's
moderator, Svetlana. "We have no time to help all. There are no special
organizations, a search service, pet rescue service, or a single
veterinary clinic that would agree to treat homeless pets for free. They
do not even offer discounts. An operation can cost up to 20,000 rubles.
Where can we take so much money for a homeless pet? No doctor will agree
even to take a look at the dog gratis."
So far there has been only one piece of legislation protecting pets -
The Cruel Treatment of Animals article of Russia's Criminal Code. This
article, which is very seldom used and very ineffective, may result in a
fine or correctional works. For many years (since 2000) the law on the
protection of animals has been idle, gathering dust. It underwent all
three readings in the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, and was
approved by the upper house, the Federation Council, only to be turned
down by the then President Vladimir Putin.
Moscow's program for sterilization, proclaimed in 2002, has failed.
Dog catching and accommodation at animal shelters reached nowhere. The
shelters are packed to capacity, but stray dogs are roaming the streets as
before.
Today the authorities seem to have decided to resume the old
liquidation practice. The Moscow government has distributed among the
prefectures and the city's veterinary committee new proposed rules
instructing the veterinarians at the animal shelters to sort out the
newly-delivered animals within a three-day deadline. Sick, old and
aggressive dogs, as well as cubs, are to be put to death and disposed of.
The proposals are still in the process of coordination.
Many dog owners and pet protection activists have risen in revolt -
mostly because the state of affairs at Moscow's animal shelters is
disastrous. Most of them are real death factories for animals, and
volunteers are kept away from them.
The president of the pet rights protection center Vita, Irina
Novozhilova, is quoted by the daily as saying that the problem of homeless
pets invariably emerges in those countries where the state does nothing to
control the animals' breeding rate. This is precisely Russia's case. In
the meantime, putting the animals' breeding under control will be possible
with economic methods. Firstly, home pets must be sterilized. Where there
is just a pair of cats or dogs today today, in six years' time there will
be 420,000 cubs and 67,000 cubs respectively (their offspring and
offspring of their offspring and so on). There will never be enough animal
shelters to go around.
"If only the federal law on the protection of animals were adopted in
2000, today we would be far more closer to the solution of the problem of
homeless dogs and cats. The law sets a mechanism capable of restricting
the animals' uncontrolled breeding. Pet breeders did not like that very
much, and they went to great lengths to ruin the law," Novozhilova said.
She believes that the lifetime keeping of dogs and cats at shelters is
another gross mistake of the pet policy. In many countries people adopt
animals from shelters. In Russia potential owners are not allowed to come
anywhere near.
In the meantime, volunteers and enthusiasts do what they can to make
life easier for the poor unattended pets. In the city volunteer caretakers
who spend quite a lot on food for stray dogs number thousands.
The attitude to homeless dogs shows that far from all people's souls
are cold and callous. As a rule, compassion gains the upper hand over the
wish to see things clean and tidy. Nobody drives dogs out of public
transport vehicles or street underpasses.
Next to the entrance to a Moscow metro station there is a monument to
a stray dog. It is called "Compassion." The monument was put there to
commemorate a mongrel dog everybody called The Boy. Several years ago the
dog died after a 22-year-old top model stabbed it with a kitchen knife.
Apparently, she had been a drug addict. The Boy had been loved, taken care
of and fed by all subway station personnel.

-0-str