Even sterilized stray dogs continue to attack children: the authorities are powerless

A person walks along an ordinary, not very well-equipped street somewhere in the area of ​​​​garages or industrial zones. When the eye notices them – five or a dozen healthy animals, located by the side of the road – it is usually too late to run. There is hope: maybe they will miss it? Sometimes it can be lucky, but it happens in a different way: a person is attacked from all sides, pieces of meat are pulled out, knocked down, and they get to the throat. So recently, an eight-year-old boy died in Orenburg, and the next day another child was severely injured in Transbaikalia.

Let’s be honest: in Moscow we have lost the habit of such news, the peak of the state of emergency with stray dogs came at the end of the 2000s. But it is worth getting outside the capital – terrible stories of this kind are repeated every year. There are areas where people go only with “weapons” against dogs – sticks, shovels, firecrackers. In those Orenburg garages where the animals cut off the life of a child, adult men had previously chased these same dogs with improvised means more than once. Sometimes I had to barricade myself in the garage and, waving a shovel, call for help in a car: otherwise they would tear me apart.

Yes, there are about five thousand stray dogs in Orenburg, according to one of the deputies of the City Council – a fantastic figure by today’s standards.

In the days of great-grandfathers, there would have been no special questions: in the village, such dogs would have been quickly shot by hunters, in the city – by the police. Now this is illegal: protecting the rights of animals in full accordance with the federal law on the responsible treatment of animals, adopted exactly five years ago. No one is reluctant to go on trial for such (especially for the illegal use of weapons, for which not a fine, but a term is imposed).

According to the law, stray dogs are supposed to be caught, sterilized, vaccinated against rabies and other socially dangerous diseases … And released back into the “habitat” in three weeks: this was confirmed in Orenburg. They will not be able to breed (although there are rumors about fake sterilization, when the money for the operation is written off, but a completely fertile animal returns to “nature”), but biting is for a sweet soul. Especially when a familiar flock is nearby.

On some of the animals that killed the boy in Orenburg, there were yellow tags on their ears familiar to many: they had undergone the procedure. Did it help?

If you listen to the stories of relatives of those who died from homeless flocks, insomnia is guaranteed: children, women of all ages, pensioners did not return home, because dogs blocked their way, and there was no one to help. There have been dozens, if not hundreds, of such cases in recent years. Only in the last month in Astrakhan – two victims of dogs, in Saratov on one day on April 8, three children were injured. True, as already mentioned, all this is not in Moscow, so these tragedies rarely get into the federal news.

Why are we discussing this now? News stories of this kind “pop up” in the big agenda, as a rule, for a reason. Indeed, a number of legislators and officials in the regions have a desire to update the already mentioned federal law of 2018. In particular, to give the regions the right to choose the method of regulating the number of homeless animals themselves.

Because the OSVV method – “catching, sterilization, vaccination, release into the habitat” – in principle, in its original form does not regulate flocks almost anywhere. In Moscow, it regulates, but only because most often caught dogs remain in shelters. There are quite a few of these shelters and there are volunteers and resources around them. And although the living conditions there are far from heavenly, they try not to let the animals back into the wild. It’s for safety’s sake to get dogs off the streets.

The only problem is that no one, apart from cities of federal significance, has the money for such a policy. Especially taking into account the fact that the powers to capture and everything that needs to be done afterwards have been transferred to the regions, and from there to the municipalities.

And now we get at the level of settlements and districts “the situation is worse than the governor’s”: according to the law, if you please, not only catch the animals, but also place them in a shelter and operate … And then, if you are very rich, you can keep them in a shelter, and the residents will thank you, but they will scold you for the unfinished local road (and where does the money for the road come from if they went to a shelter?). And if the shelter is a luxury, then the dogs will again go “into nature”, terrorizing the elderly and children.

That is why the regions are literally screaming: return the “cleaning subdivisions” with legal euthanasia, without this we will not be able to ensure security, it is too expensive. Animal rights activists are horrified in response (there is a minority of them who support euthanasia for stray dogs, but there are very few of them). The federal authorities and legislators (for example, Andrey Turchak from United Russia) frown: we will not allow living. But something still needs to be done?.. And they are significantly silent (moreover, some deputies – for example, another well-known United Russia party Nikolai Valuev – already agree to “tough methods”).

Life meanwhile “lives” quite parallel to the legislation. So, several chairmen of the Moscow Region SNT regulate the dog population precisely with cruel old-fashioned methods. In late autumn and winter, when most summer residents have already left and do not hear the shots. And (most importantly) away from security cameras. Summer residents who saw a flock of dogs in October, and did not see them in April, do not ask unnecessary questions: they did not survive the winter, and thank God.

And where there are cameras and witnesses – that is, in settlements – they also sometimes come up with “schemes” out of poverty: for example, to catch dogs without formal registration and take them somewhere far away in an ordinary Gazelle. For example, to the neighboring district: now let it be the problem of the neighbors. It’s not fair, of course – and it happens that the neighbors of the same animals soon return in the same way. But sometimes there is no money in municipalities not only for shelters, but also for sterilization.

We have to admit a simple fact: the Russian regions “do not pull” the bar set by the State Duma five years ago, the highest standards for the treatment of homeless animals (in the sense of keeping them alive in any case and keeping them in shelters). Moscow – yes, because the capital and the richest super-region. But other regions and territories often do not.

This means that there are two solutions: to lower the bar, allowing those regions and municipalities where there is no money for shelters to kill dangerous flocks. Or decide that “blessed are those who have mercy on cattle” – this is a national idea. And spread the Moscow standards (of course, at federal expense) throughout the country. Whether the budget will pull it or not, we don’t know, “there are accountants for this.” But this is our choice.