Moscow’s Stray Dog Problem

Moscow’s street dogs are apparently still under attack from “dog hunters” who leave poisoned bait in public parks for them. As I have reported here before, their indiscriminate baiting has also led to the deaths of pet dogs but now things may have escalated even further with suspicion that a fire at an animal shelter in the city may have been an arson attack by the same group.

This article in The Moscow News covers the most recent events and then moves on to discuss Moscow’s animal shelters including how they have to be very secretive about their whereabouts because otherwise people will dump their unwanted pets directly on their doorstep or over their fence.

From this article it seems clear to me that Moscow’s problem lies in the abandonment of pet dogs with an estimated 10,000 dumped on the streets every year. The old approach of culling strays in the city was changed in 2001 to a catch-neuter-release program that was a little pointless given that the problem was abandonment not strays breeding. Since then it has been changed to catch-neuter-keep in shelters forever, which is an enormous on-going commitment that in itself will never solve the problem.

Moscow, as elsewhere, has to tackle irresponsible dog ownership first and foremost.

Learn more about the lives and issue of unowned dogs in my e-book ”A Stray View” available from Bangkok Books (readable as .pdf on any computer)