Sochi's stray dogs move to Canada

Lisa Hipgrave, 45, knew her search for a youngster to adopt was over the moment she saw Tatiana's picture online.

"She's the one," the Toronto real estate agent recalled thinking. "She's my Russian mail-order dog."

She completed the adoption website's interview process, paid $650 US and Tatiana was flown to Toronto 3½ weeks later.

The shy, dark-haired mutt, who has been renamed Stevie, is an unlikely refugee: a stray dog from the streets of Sochi.

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The resort city on the southwestern coast is best known for hosting the 2014 Winter Olympics. But amid the tales of bloated budgets, unfinished bathrooms and athletic excellence were reports of an animal control company hired to catch and kill the hundreds of stray dogs roaming the streets.

The purpose was to beautify the city and protect visitors ahead of the Games. But Sochi Dogs, a non-profit group that co-ordinates the adoption of the city's strays, says the killings never stopped and plenty of dogs still need homes.

Tatiana Leschenko, an administrator for another group that helps stray animals in Sochi, estimates about 300 strays are killed per month. She alleges they're poisoned and die on the spot. Their bodies, she says, are taken to a plant where they're burned for "bone flour," which is used to feed domesticated animals.

"Before the 2014 Olympics, exterminators were paid 1,200 rubles [approximately $23 Cdn] per animal, which included everything such as poison and transportation," she says.

Sochi Dogs tries to rescue as many strays as possible with its shelter in Sochi and the power of the internet.

It's not registered as a non-profit in Russia and receives no support from the local government, though co-founder and president Anna Unamsky says many in the community are happy the dogs are being taken off the streets.

Unamsky works from an office in Morristown, N.J., where she co-ordinates support for the Sochi shelter, including ordering supplies such as dog crates and food and organizing educational spay and neutering initiatives in Sochi. The office also runs the website and works closely with potential adopters.

The dogs are vaccinated in Sochi and flown to Moscow where they're fostered by a veterinary technologist. She puts them on a plane with their special passport and health certificate.

North Americans have adopted 67 of the 100 Sochi strays that have been placed in homes so far. Thirty of those rescued dogs came to Toronto.

A charity called Pilots N Paws picks up the dogs when they land in North America and flies them to the airport nearest to their new home.

Christine Geddes, 41, was originally interested in fostering a dog from Toronto, but it proved to be an ordeal.

She says she submitted applications but didn't hear back. And in two cases, foster organizations accepted her application but didn't deliver a dog.

Then she remembered Sochi's strays.

'It breaks my heart'

She checked out the Sochi Dogs website and found a terrier-lab mix named Sadie.

Five days after confirming the adoption, Sadie was put on a plane.

"She's the sweetest dog," Geddes said. "I can't imagine how her life would have been if she had stayed a street dog. It breaks my heart."

Prices for the dogs range from $375 to $450 US, which is the cost of the flight from Russia.

Sochi Dogs is supported entirely through donations, most of which come from individuals. The group holds fundraisers and has an online shop that sells merchandise.

It relies heavily on word of mouth and social media to find suitable homes for the dogs.

The story of the Olympic cull has stuck with many people, Unamsky says. And when they see Sochi Dogs is still operating, they get excited and want to help.

Cody Neal, 25, of Toronto, says his mother and sister told him about what happened to the strays at the Sochi Olympics. The idea of wild dogs was upsetting, the home renovator said.

They visited the Sochi Dogs site and "fell in love" with a dog named Betty. But the puppy had broken hind legs. Sochi Dogs paid for Betty's surgery, but the pup died the day before it was to travel to Toronto.

Neal was heartbroken.

"I just got over the death of my dog a year before and then this?" he said.

Neal later surprised his family with Jax, a German shepherd mix who looks like a dingo and just so happens to be Betty's brother.

"I went to a litter reunion in Oakville with two others in his litter. They were healthy and all playing," Neal said.

Every month, Sochi Dogs rescues approximately 10-15 strays and finds homes for four to eight others. If there's no room at the kennel, volunteers will take them into their homes until they find a foster home or a spot opens up at the shelter.

While Sochi Dogs continues to rescue strays and find them homes, the same animal control company that made headlines during the Olympics is also still at work. 

Alexei Sorokin of Basya Services says Sochi's residents deserve safety. Stray dogs bite and they are a problem all over Russia, he says.

Basya's website says the dogs are either given to a shelter or put down humanely. But Sorokin wouldn't discuss the company's specific methods or the number of dogs it puts down.

He says the stories about the strays during the Olympics were unfair.

"Why do Americans have this interest? They don't have stray dogs because it's dangerous. Dogs spend three to four months in a shelter [in Canada] and then killed," Sorokin says. "Why are they telling us how to live as soon as we became independent?"

Many dogs are now brought to the Sochi Dogs shelter to be spayed/neutered, which is important to solving the root problem.

Other challenges include a lack of shelters and veterinarians in Sochi.

Sochi Dogs hopes to launch a Russian website to help teach people how to take care of their dogs so they don't feel compelled to abandon them. It also works with a Sochi radio station to spread its message.

Its long-term goal, after plenty of education and outreach, is to set up an adoption system in Sochi.

Tiffany Bateman is a public health expert and a fellow in journalism at the Munk School of Global Affairs. Follow Tiffany on Twitter: @TiffanyBBateman