Russia’s for the Dogs

The previous posting by Grigory Pasko, which reported that Moscow spends more on housing its stray dogs than its homeless people, has prompted another related story (thanks to our translator) which we’ve seen going around in the Russian press.  Some time ago, Komsomolskaya pravda had a very hard-hitting expose about the financial scams which hide behind these dog shelter projects.

Essentially, the story is the following: The city pays the dog shelter per head to care for stray dogs, which naturally motivates them to pack in as many animals in as possible. But then these same facilities operate in a private, for-profit function, renting themselves out as private kennels for rich people going away to Courchevel for the month or whatever, and even as breeders of pedigree animals. The strays are kept in overcrowded primitive pens reminiscent of an investigative isolator and fed rotten slop thrown on the floor, while the nice warm compartments and the real food are allocated to the “paying customers”.

While much of this blog’s content deals with the repeated human rights abuses experienced by those unfortunate Russians made victim of political cases, perhaps some animal rights folks might have a bone to pick here too.  The newspaper has published an abridged English translation of the expose here.

One would hope that Vladimir Putin’s black lab Koni, made famous for his GPS tracking collar and for sniffing foreign foreign leaders, receives somewhat better treatment. We don’t even have to ask about the other dog, Tosya (credit to FP’s Passport blog for owning the Putin dog stories).