OUR DOG BUSINESS

MOSCOW OBSERVER

On Monday, in the midst of frost, when the temperature dropped to -25, Novaya Gazeta staged an action: "Let's be people in the Year of the Dog." We had three tons of dog food provided by the Pedigree brand. On four machines (two of...

On Monday, in the midst of frost, when the temperature dropped to -25, Novaya Gazeta staged an action: "Let's be people in the Year of the Dog." We had three tons of dog food provided by the Pedigree brand. On four cars (two of them were given to us by the department of urban fauna of the Department of Housing and Public Utilities of Moscow) we traveled almost all of Moscow. 700 kilograms of feed were brought to Moscow shelters. The rest was taken around the city, leaving the dogs in the yards, at construction sites, factories, and in subway passages.

There are more than twenty thousand stray dogs in Moscow. And several hundred guardians - people who thoroughly know the places of lodging for the night of dog packs, remember them by nicknames, characters and medical histories, feed them with their own money and protect them as their own. It was they who took us to the "dog" places. We also left some food for them.

When we, together with dog lovers, prepared the route of our cars on the forum of the Dog and Cat website, we had to close the forum thread from prying eyes: people were afraid to tell strangers about the places where dogs hide. Too often they disappear.

It was difficult to communicate with guardians.

- We have four flocks in our yards, will you come? Well, thirty dogs. Now I will tell you for sure: Sharik, Belka, Naida, Jack ...

- Will you leave food for me? Don't be afraid, I won't steal it. Because I'm a university professor...

- Here you feed stray dogs, and I have domestic ones. A lot of. Can you feed them too? Otherwise it is discrimination!

Hands and paws were missing. I had to ask dog-loving readers for help. Elena Nikolaevna delivered a ton of food to the northern regions of Moscow. There was no room in the truck, Elena Nikolaevna spent part of the road in the back. At home, her starving, unwalked dog was waiting for her.

Ira went to dog shelters.

Lena went south with us. She talked about homeless dogs, which she feeds herself. About two home, picked up on the street. About the fact that her husband jokes that she prepares dinners for the dogs, and not for him.

Our car got to bypass the center. We didn't have an exact plan to search for the packs, so we drove almost at random. Television people gathered with us, they had to show a flock that would not hit the muzzle in the dirt in front of the cameras. For which it would not be ashamed. I had such a flock in mind - about sixteen in the Red Gate area. I have known these dogs since April last year, when they made a favorable impression. Some once again produced eight puppies every six months, but these were an exception. The rest were considered safely sterilized, which provided the dogs with at least some protection from the flaying teams during the sweeps.

The flock was also taken care of by very decent people: Ira and Andrei, newspaper sellers, Dima, who lives nearby, Asya Grigorievna from the railway office, veteran Ilya Petrovich, Lyudochka, a judge from the arbitration court, and many others. All their dogs were trained in the elementary rules of human society. They were no longer afraid of cameras, because Ilya Petrovich photographed them from all possible angles for his book "A Dog's Life", which is sold at the foot of the high-rise building on Red Gate for a hundred rubles.

On the spot, it turned out that over the past few months, the pack at the Red Gate had thinned greatly. In the autumn there were raids connected with the arrival of some large delegation, then a couple more dogs disappeared. Dima believes that these two have become victims of Moscow restaurateurs who specialize in cooking exotic dishes. But Ilya Petrovich reasoned with him:

Dima, Dima! Well why. For lack of evidence...

Five more dogs disappeared on New Year's Eve - they were frightened by firecrackers. After the holidays, only four of the whole flock returned to their original place: Polkan, Belka, Chernysh and some other, I don’t remember.

“Our dogs are unlikely to agree to be filmed,” Ira said from the newspaper tent. “They are scared now.

But the dogs agreed. We found them on a small couch at the door of the office where Asya Grigorievna works. They barked a little, but then we brought food from the car, and the dogs became more hospitable.

Asya Grigorievna packed the railway parcel and went out to feed the dog Belka from her hands. The rest eat themselves, and Belka prefers to eat from her hands, although otherwise she is not spoiled. Ilya Petrovich told the camera who the dogs from this pack bring to each other, and Dima was silent for a minute in memory of the dog Amurchik, who disappeared in the thirty-degree Moscow frost. The dogs ate their weekly ration of Pedigrees in an hour because the TV people couldn't film the scene for a long time.

We learned a lot about dogs. It turns out that there is a dog mafia: it settles in the center, occupies warm subway passages, conquers markets, makes friends with merchants and watchmen, sucks up to passers-by, steals where it can, beg where they give it. She refuses bread and arrogantly sniffs sausages.

But there are others. They live on the outskirts, in industrial zones, at construction sites, heating mains. They are chased by guards and local residents. The cellars where they hide are clogged, poison is mixed into the food. Sometimes they are fed by migrant workers and lodged in booths by local old women. Only TV people are begging not to bring them to them: they will show it - and then they will shoot the dogs.

But we learned even more about people.

The guards of the industrial zone in Tsaritsyn let chain dogs out into the street at night and set them on a pack of mutts living across the road. The locals are afraid that one night homeless people will be in place of the dogs.

Recently, on Paveletskaya, one of the locals shot a dog. He practiced shooting from the balcony of his house.

Tajik workers at a construction site in Tushino took away two of the bags of food we had brought from old guardians. The old women were indignant, but forgave: they, they say, need it more. And we feed the dogs - and they. But our pensions are higher ...

The next point on our route is Sokolniki, where, according to rumors, three flocks live at once. On the way, we stopped at the Three Stations Square, because dogs must live there. The dogs were not immediately found - in cold weather they hide in different warm corners at the stations. Watchmen and janitors know about these corners. An elderly janitor Tanya showed us where her pack of three dogs lives. One has already lost a front leg.

Tanya knew nothing about Pedigree. She opened the bag of food with a sweeping gesture.

- Rusks? No, mine won't. They are accustomed to eating oatmeal with broth,” she said, and reached into her orange jacket for cigarettes.

The bag fell, the food spilled. The three-legged Bars jumped up to the yellow bag and climbed inside with his head, snarling in advance so that the rest would not come up to the food.

- Stop! What are you like a pig! Tanya grumbled kindly, pushing Bars aside. - Let me put it in a bowl. You see, he liked crackers.

Galina Petrovna meets us first. She is wearing a red dog coat. Behind him are two higher educations, in the present - a pension and work as a janitor. Around - a pack of dogs and a dozen cardboard dog kennels, which they built themselves with their girlfriend Lidochka.

The TV people who came with us are filming a friendly flock of dogs around the booths.

“Wait, you don’t just need to feed these, I’ll bring you another pack right now, the next one,” promises Galina Petrovna. And soon appears from around the corner, surrounded by dogs wagging their tails happily.

The dogs follow her like they are tied. They approach the booths, film crews point the lenses of three cameras at them ... And then the first flock of dogs bristles, rushes to the second, they all grapple into one fighting, squealing ball, which rolls off somewhere into the yards. And only a skinny puppy, abandoned by everyone, crawls out of one booth, furtively looks around, turns over the opened package of Pedigree food - and begins to crunch, choking.

Looking around, Galina Petrovna leads us through the yards.

“The Pirate lives here,” she says, squeezing her way to the dog house in the narrow gap between the garages. “And in that house is the chief policeman. Who says that all dogs should be killed. Whoo! - and Galina Petrovna angrily shakes her fist somewhere in the direction of the window.

Unknown people break doghouses about once a month.

“Jack-Jack-Jack… he’ll lure the whole flock out for me now,” guardian Elena leaned over the inconspicuous iron door of the basement near the industrial zone in Tsaritsyn. Dog Jack sedately sticks his head out from under the door and, spreading himself, crawls out. The gap under the door was sealed with a grate: either they wanted to keep the dogs out, or wall it up there. The whole flock follows him. Lena feeds them, they will not let anyone else in: this winter sulfuric acid was spilled around them, their paws are still healing.

We arrive at Tatyana Ivanovna's in Chertanovo quite late. We do not have time to feed the dogs, but we leave ten bags of food for her and two other guardians.

Once upon a time, Tatyana Ivanovna had her own business (several stalls) and a beloved daughter. My daughter died three years ago. Tatyana Ivanovna closed her business. It was replaced by dogs. First, a thoroughbred poodle. Then - a mongrel picked up in the cold. Then - another one, sick and cured by Tatyana Ivanovna. Veterinary textbooks lined up behind her daughter's photographs on a bookshelf. Now Tatyana Ivanovna even knows how to operate: recently she cut out a small tumor on the dog herself. It costs $300 at the clinic. Where can you get them?

In Chertanovo, Tatyana Ivanovna knows all the dogs perfectly. Every day he feeds a flock of 10-11 goals. Only the sickest are taken home. She jokes that now there is a hospice in her one-room apartment.

With neighbors - a fragile balance. With yourself - a deep conflict, concluded in the question "what to do?". In a month, 8-9 thousand rubles are spent on food for dogs (our own and stray). Tatyana Ivanovna's pension is four thousand. Savings are running out.

PS The general sponsor of the action is Pedigree trade mark.

Information support: radio stations "Echo of Moscow", "Radio of Russia", "Megapolis FM"; "Third Channel"; magazine "Vestnik Media".

Special thanks to: Tatyana Nikolaevna Pavlova, Head of the Department of Urban Fauna of the Department of Housing and Public Utilities of the City of Moscow; our assistants - Elena Nikolaevna Yachmeneva, Irina Terentyeva, Elena Pletneva and everyone who responded to our action.

Photo by Sergey KUZNETSOV