Sochi Stray Dogs Spared Inhumane Death by Volunteers and Billionaire

By Sami K. Martin, Christian Post Reporter Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Sochi's stray dogs are getting a second chance thanks to volunteers smuggling them out of the city and to one billionaire who decided to rescue the dogs and open a shelter until they can be adopted. The public was outraged when they learned that stray dogs were being killed in preparation for the Olympics, leading many to take action.

"I like dogs, but that's not the point," one volunteer known only as Alexei told the Associated Press. "You know, even if you don't like children and don't want to have one, when you see a baby lying on the street bleeding or find out about maniacs hunting for children, you would want to do something to help."

Alexei and wife Dina have been picking up stray dogs and taking them to "safe houses" where they are spared a horrific death at the hands of the government. According to the New York Times, officials were given guns loaded with poisoned darts that caused the dogs to suffocate and die. They simply wanted to clean up the streets in preparation for the Olympics, much to the outrage of activists and everyday people who felt there should be a press for responsible animal control policies, not death.

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"We were told, 'Either you take all the dogs from the Olympic Village or we will shoot them,'" Olga Melnikova, who is helping with the rescue effort, told the Times. "On Monday we were told we have until Thursday."

"Imagine, if during an Olympic game, a ski jumper landed at 130 kilometers an hour and a dog runs into him when he lands. It would be deadly for both a jumper and for the stray dog," Alexei Sorokin, owner of the company hired to kill the dogs, told ABC News. "I am for the right of the people to walk the streets without fear of being attacked by packs of dogs. Let's call things by their real name: these dogs are biological trash."

Since then, people have been doing what they can to spare the dogs a gruesome death. Oleg Deripaska, one of Russia's well-known billionaires, has stepped up to support a shelter for the stray dogs. The Times of London reported that while Deripaska loves dogs, he mainly sees the shelter as an investment for the future of Sochi, which he would like to see become a "thriving, modern tourist destination."