The Olympic city of Sochi has been dealing with quite the furry problem.
Thousands of stray dogs have been roaming the streets of the city. The dogs have been wandering the streets that were once empty, sleepy areas. Now, the built-up developments are home to the many lonely canines.
Russian animal rights activists have recently accused city officials of ridding the street dogs through the use of poison in hopes of clearing out for the highly-anticipated Olympic games.
“They always poison the street dogs here,” Yulia Krasova said. “But in December it got terrible … they began poisoning the animals terribly before the Olympics.”
Krasova says that she witnessed the death of a street dog two weeks ago. She recalled the gruesome death of the stray.
“The dog jumped up and started running around in circles. Then she fell down and started spitting up … I called the veterinarian. He said there is a 100% guarantee the dog was poisoned.”
She also recorded the dog’s long and painful death on her cell phone for evidence.
Sochi 2013 Organizing Committee fired back to the accusations.
“All stray dogs that are found on the Olympic Park are collected by a professional veterinary contractor for the well-being of the people on the Park and the animals themselves.”
A shelter was built to store and treat the stray pups.
“All healthy animals are released following their health check.”
But according to a local Sochi animal lover, the shelter was only built to please the media. .
“Over the last couple of days, when this uproar began, they built this new shelter just for the media,” said Vlada Provotorova, a dentist who built her own makeshift shelter to protect dogs from extermination.
Activists have taken it upon themselves to support the lost dogs, feeding, housing and sterilizing them in kennels built on the outskirts of Sochi.
Image Via YouTube