“Where is the dog that the owner abandoned?”

How Barkha, Naida, Pushok and Lucy survived the flood in Orsk and started a new life

Almost a month has passed since the flood in the Orenburg region, but many residents of flooded areas still cannot find their pets. Among the hundreds of rescued cats and dogs that ended up in a shelter or foster care, there are also those for which no one came back - and now they are looking for new owners for them. In a chat where volunteers organized help for animals, more than ten thousand messages appeared in three weeks. “Layout” tells the stories of the miraculous rescue of three dogs and one kitten.

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“You know, sometimes animals are better than people”

On April 5, residents of the Sovetsky district of Orsk gathered in a small group near the monument to Bogdan Khmelnitsky. 50 meters from them the road was no longer visible: the water was rising. It was unclear how soon it would rise higher, so dozens of people were in no hurry to evacuate and for now simply watched as those who decided to leave their home were loaded into a large all-terrain vehicle - an amphibian.

When almost everyone had climbed into the car, a dog ran up to it. The red mongrel followed one of the passengers and also tried to climb up: she stood on her hind legs several times, jumped up, and then grabbed with her teeth the rubber boots of the man who was helping other residents climb into the amphibian. The dog was pushed away and whined.

The engine of the all-terrain vehicle began to hum, and within a minute the car was in the water, and the mongrel first ran and then swam after it.

“I felt very sorry for her, she whined so much, she really wanted to go to the person who was probably inside the amphibian. But no one understood who its owner was, says Irina, whose parents watched this along with other neighbors. “The people who stood on the unflooded part began to call her back. They shouted: “Come on, come here,” and at some point she turned around.”

Irina’s parents, seventy-year-old pensioners, went to get a leash to bring their wet and frozen dog home. On the eve of the flood, their granddaughter came to visit them for the holidays, who found herself “in the thick of things” and asked to take the mongrel.

“And her grandfather supported her,” Irina recalls. “He said it’s impossible, it’s simply impossible to leave this dog - so devoted.”

Although the mongrel did not look emaciated, at home she could not stop eating and drinking for a long time. When she recovered, she began to follow Irina’s child “like a tail” and became friends with a dog who had been living on her parents’ property for a long time. The dog was named Naida - because it was found, they tried to find the owners.

Irina joined telegram communities, where they began sending photographs of rescued and wanted animals around the clock. In the largest of these chats, more than 10 thousand messages appeared in the month after the flood. There are still domestic dogs and cats that were saved thanks to volunteers, but never returned home because the owners did not get in touch. When a video of a mongrel swimming after an amphibian was published in the chat, Orchan residents began asking about the fate of the “dog abandoned by its owner.”

“Nobody started looking for her,” says Irina. — In Orsk there is a lot of private sector where animals were simply kept in the yard: a dog to guard the area, and a couple of cats to catch mice. And now, when people themselves live with relatives or in temporary detention centers, there is nowhere to take them.”

Although Irina’s parents are pensioners, and because of the flood they had no water or electricity in the first week, they took the dog without a doubt: “You know, we just love animals, sometimes they are better than people. We will not abandon Naidu, it will be ours.”

“A volunteer took a video of our dog standing in the water - it was hard to watch.”

The nicknames of some cats and dogs appeared in chats where animal rescues were coordinated dozens of times - some pets remain missing a month later, others are found thanks to the efforts of volunteers or by miracle.

“We are looking for Barkha with the whole world.” “And Barkha, the shepherd dog, was never found?” “Barkha was spotted on Kirilova Avenue - maybe someone saw her?” “It seemed like Barkha, but no.”

The owner of the shepherd dog Barkha, pensioner Victor, who works as a watchman in one of the Orsk kindergartens, returned to his home with his wife on April 11 and saw the consequences of the flood. Before the evacuation, they managed to take things to the second floor, but left the furniture below - now it is all wet. The refrigerator was lying on the floor, the doors were swollen and stopped closing, and water had to be poured out of the drawers. The shepherd dog that Victor had let off the leash before leaving was not on the property or on the neighboring streets.

“Nobody expected the level to rise so high,” he says. “There was no room in the car, Barkha, our dog is big and a little wild, it’s hard to push her in.” I thought: now I’ll transport people - my wife and daughter-in-law, and I’ll come back for her. Our porch is high, and even if the water comes, Barkha will climb onto it.”

After the evacuation, Victor was unable to return for the dog: the streets were blocked. And a few days later, when residents began sending photographs and videos of missing or injured animals to each other, Barkha appeared in one of the videos - on the very porch where she actually climbed, the water rose almost to the windows.

“A volunteer took a video of our dog standing in the water, it was clear that she couldn’t stand it for long,” recalls Victor. “It was hard to watch, Barkha has been with us for a long time.”

Ten years ago, Victor’s son brought a velvet shepherd puppy home from work and began to look after him. But a few years later the owner died - he fell ill with double pneumonia and died. Barkha stayed with Victor and his wife: she lived in an enclosure with a canopy, barked when strangers approached the fence, and loved being taken for a walk by the river - they were allowed to walk there without a leash.

When Victor realized that the dog was in danger, he began to look for volunteers with a boat, but he was refused.

“The Ministry of Emergency Situations said that they were only delivering food or evacuating people. The volunteers’ rubber boats are small, and when I talked about the big shepherd dog, they answered: “We’re afraid it might break the boat, look for an iron one.” I found one, but its owner is busy saving his pigeons. By the time we reached the yard, Barkha was no longer there. We climbed onto the roof of the garage, shouted - silence. Then they started writing in chats that our dog had recently been rescued, but no one answered where she was assigned.”

Several times Victor was sent photographs of similar shepherd dogs or reported that they had seen Barkha in different areas. Then volunteer Vladimir, the one who filmed Barkha on the flooded porch a few days ago, contacted him and offered to help.

“He said that he had a boat and that he had recently seen a very similar shepherd on the dam,” says Victor. “I took time off from work, he came to pick me up, and we swam.” Shepherd, but again not ours. We gave her food and left.”

The next day, on the morning of April 15, the man arrived after his night shift and sat down to have breakfast. A week has passed since Victor and his wife returned to their home, and the couple were waiting for the commission that assesses the damage after the flood. They knocked on the window, Victor went to open it.

“And then a neighbor said: “Look!”,” he recalls. — Our Barkha is standing in front of the door. She ran near the house and scratched at the gate. How I found my way is a mystery. She and I didn’t go for many walks, and she certainly couldn’t have come from the old city from memory.”

Barkha ran into the area - at first she was happy, and then she whined.

“I couldn’t stop for a long time, I didn’t even eat anything, we poured her borscht,” says Victor. “I sat next to her, stroking her so that she would calm down. We cried a little."

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"I won't trust anyone"

Animals that did not find their way home and did not end up in a shelter began to live in other people’s yards. Some were found emaciated and with injuries.

“My daughter asks: ‘Give me your card so I can buy food.’ And I say: ‘Lord, who are you feeding there? Show me,’” says Tatyana, a resident of the village of Stroitel, north of the old city.

When an evacuation was announced in Orsk, the woman immediately decided not to risk it and leave - she has two children and a disabled mother. When they returned two weeks later, having stayed with relatives and friends, it became clear that the house was lucky: it stood on a hill and was almost undamaged - the water only came to the threshold.

In houses nearby, the first floors “sank.” The neighbors' children found a kitten. He was sitting in a balloon, which they covered with a board at night to hide him from the dogs. They brought him food and drinking water, which was delivered by the authorities - however, they did not understand that it was not enough to simply place a bottle nearby.

“My neighbor and I pulled him out, and he was lame. They took him for an x-ray and it turned out he had a spinal fracture,” says Tatyana. “The local surgeon looked at the picture and immediately said that any measures would be useless.”

Then the picture was shown to a doctor from Moscow. At first he replied: “There’s nothing you can do here,” but then he looked at the kitten in the video and agreed to try to help: he saw that he was still walking, although he was tucking his hind legs and his tail was moving.

Tatyana took the animal to her family. When the kitten got into the apartment, he began to behave like a pet: he looked for a tray and went to sleep on the sofa. The kitten was given a bath, and he began to look too “respectable” for the nickname Fluff, which the children gave him - now they are arguing about a new name or trying to guess the old one. ABOUT

Tatyana published photos of the kitten in a chat where Orchan residents are looking for lost animals, but no one responded. “Now we are protecting him. We carry him in our arms to eat and carry him into the tray. He climbs onto the sofa - someone sits with him so that he doesn’t jump off. Our cat, of course, was shocked and boycotted us; at first she slept in the closet. I tell her: “You are a mother, and he is a child.”

In May, Tatyana plans to fly with the kitten for an operation in Moscow - the surgeon promised to give a discount to the animal damaged due to the flood. The surgery may not cure his limp, but the injury will not cause pain. At first, the woman wanted to find a volunteer who would meet the animal at the airport and take it to the clinic, where they were waiting for him, but changed her mind: “He can’t be alone on a train or on a plane after surgery. I won't trust anyone."

“Probably not enough grief for people”

When Elena, who lives on Vyazemskaya Street, returned to her house after evacuation, a new animal also appeared in her yard - a brown mongrel who did not let people near her and ran away from them howling. During the day she most often lay in one place and looked very weak, and at night she barked. Elena showed a video of the dog to the veterinarian to make sure that she had no serious injuries, and began leaving food for her far behind houses until the neighbors saw.

“Now she’s ready to eat from her hand, and I tell her: “Well, you didn’t kill me, everything here needs to be done subtly.” Because no one needs her here,” the woman explains. “When she just arrived in the yard, the neighbor ran after her with a pipe. I heard her screaming from the apartment, and jumped out and started yelling at him. And he asks: “Is this yours?” I really felt sorry for her, she was hugging the ground - maybe her paws were weak after the flood. I can’t take her home with me - I have a Pomeranian at home, and I also live in two cities.”

When the dog got stronger, it began to look like it had previously been guarding someone’s house - it began barking at people who approached the entrance.

“I’m afraid that the neighbors will do something irreparable,” Elena wrote in an ad asking for help to catch the dog. She says that cruelty to stray animals is “all over the place” in the city, and residents of her yard have already discussed how they can drive the dog away - for example, putting “something in its food that will scare it away.”

“It’s clear that people are on edge after everything that happened, they need to rest, but here a strange dog barks at night,” says Elena. “But we all found ourselves in the same situation as her.” We ourselves were forced to leave our homes for a while, and not everyone returned. Probably, grief is not enough for people; they need even more to unite. So that they stop thinking only about themselves, so that humanity awakens in them.”

A veterinarian I know advised the woman to stop feeding the dog so that it gets used to it: she needs to get food on her own. If she learns, she will be able to leave the yard and, as Elena thinks, will not suffer at the hands of a person.

“In the morning I left for work, and she looked at me. I told her: “No, Lucy, go ahead yourself,” she says.

***

Let us remind you that earlier “Verstka” published a report from Orsk during the flood . The main question of flood victims: “Why weren’t people notified in advance?” We also figured out how human-induced climate change led to floods in the Orenburg region . We have also prepared instructions on how to prepare for a flood and what to do if it has already begun.

Cover: Dmitry Osinnikov

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