Unique behavior of Moscow's stray dogs Options

[Laurae]

This article is absolutely fascinating!

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/628a8500-ff1c-11...144feab49a.html



Moscow's stray dogs
By Susanne Sternthal

Published: January 16 2010 00:04 | Last updated: January 16 2010 00:04


Russians can go nutty when it comes to dogs. Consider the incident a few years ago that involved Yulia Romanova, a 22-year-old model. On a winter evening, Romanova was returning with her beloved Staffordshire terrier from a visit to a designer who specialises in kitting out canine Muscovites in the latest fashions. The terrier was sporting a new green camouflage jacket as he walked with his owner through the crowded Mendeleyevskaya metro station. There they encountered Malchik, a black stray who had made the station his home, guarding it against drunks and other dogs. Malchik barked at the pair, defending his territory. But instead of walking away, Romanova reached into her pink rucksack, pulled out a kitchen knife and, in front of rush-hour commuters, stabbed Malchik to death.

The statue of Malchik erected by well-wishers after his deathRomanova was arrested, tried and underwent a year of psychiatric treatment. Typically for Russia, this horror story was countered by a wellspring of sympathy for Moscow's strays. A bronze statue of Malchik, paid for by donations, now stands at the entrance of Mendeleyevskaya station. It has become a symbol for the 35,000 stray dogs that roam Russia's capital – about 84 dogs per square mile. You see them everywhere. They lie around in the courtyards of apartment complexes, wander near markets and kiosks, and sleep inside metro stations and pedestrian passageways. You can hear them barking and howling at night. And the strays on Moscow's streets do not look anything like the purebreds preferred by status-conscious Muscovites. They look like a breed apart. I moved to Moscow with my family last year and was startled to see so many stray dogs. Watching them over time, I realised that, despite some variation in colour – some were black, others yellowish white or russet – they all shared a certain look. They were medium-sized with thick fur, wedge-shaped heads and almond eyes. Their tails were long and their ears erect.

They also acted differently. Every so often, you would see one waiting on a metro platform. When the train pulled up, the dog would step in, scramble up to lie on a seat or sit on the floor if the carriage was crowded, and then exit a few stops later. There is even a website dedicated to the metro stray (www.metrodog.ru) on which passengers post photos and video clips taken with their mobile phones, documenting the ­savviest of the pack using the public transport system like any other Muscovite.

Where did these animals come from? It's a question Andrei Poyarkov, 56, a biologist specialising in wolves, has dedicated himself to answering. His research focuses on how different environments affect dogs' behaviour and social organisation. About 30 years ago, he began studying Moscow's stray dogs. Poyarkov contends that their appearance and behaviour have changed over the decades as they have continuously adapted to the changing face of Russia's capital. Virtually all the city's strays were born that way: dumping a pet dog on the streets of Moscow amounts to a near-certain death sentence. Poyarkov reckons fewer than 3 per cent survive.

. . .

Poyarkov works at the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution in south-west Moscow. His office is small, but boasts high ceilings and tall windows. Several wire cages sit on a table in the centre of the room. Inside them, four weasels scurry through tunnels and run on a wheel. Poyarkov and I sit near the weasels and sip green tea.

Biologist Andrei PoyarkovHe first thought of observing the behaviour of stray dogs in 1979, and began with the ones that lived near his apartment and those he encountered on his way to work. The area he studied came to comprise some 10 sq km, home to about 100 dogs. Poyarkov started making recordings of the sounds that the strays made, and began to study their social organisation. He photographed and catalogued them, mapping where each dog lived.He quickly found that the strays were much easier to study than wolves. "To see a wild wolf is a real event," he says. "You can see them, but not for very long and not at close range. But with stray dogs you can watch them for as long as you want and, for the most part, be quite near them." According to Poyarkov, there are 30,000 to 35,000 stray dogs in Moscow, while the wolf population for the whole of Russia is about 50,000 to 60,000. Population density, he says, determines how frequently the animals come into contact with each other, which in turn affects their behaviour, psychology, stress levels, physiology and relationship to their environment.

"The second difference between stray dogs and wolves is that the dogs, on average, are much less aggressive and a good deal more tolerant of one another," says Poyarkov. Wolves stay strictly within their own pack, even if they share a territory with another. A pack of dogs, however, can hold a dominant position over other packs and their leader will often "patrol" the other packs by moving in and out of them. His observations have led Poyarkov to conclude that this leader is not necessarily the strongest or most dominant dog, but the most intelligent – and is acknowledged as such. The pack depends on him for its survival.

Moscow's strays sit somewhere between house pets and wolves, says Poyarkov, but are in the early stages of the shift from the domesticated back towards the wild. That said, there seems little chance of reversing this process. It is virtually impossible to domesticate a stray: many cannot stand being confined indoors.

"Genetically, wolves and dogs are almost identical," says Poyarkov. "What has changed significantly [with domestication] is a range of hormonal and behavioural parameters, because of the brutal natural selection that eliminated many aggressive animals." He recounts the work of Soviet biologist Dmitri Belyaev, exiled from Moscow in 1948 during the Stalin years for a commitment to classical genetics that ran counter to state scientific doctrine of the time.

Under the guise of studying animal physiology, Belyaev set up a Russian silver fox research centre in Novosibirsk, setting out to test his theory that the most important selected characteristic for the domestication of dogs was a lack of aggression. He began to select foxes that showed the least fear of humans and bred them. After 10-15 years, the foxes he bred showed affection to their keepers, even licking them. They barked, had floppy ears and wagged their tails. They also developed spotted coats – a surprising development that was connected with a decrease in their levels of adrenaline, which shares a biochemical pathway with melanin and controls ­pigment production.

"With stray dogs, we're witnessing a move backwards," explains Poyarkov. "That is, to a wilder and less domesticated state, to a more 'natural' state." As if to prove his point, strays do not have spotted coats, they rarely wag their tails and are wary of humans, showing no signs of ­affection towards them.

. . .

The stray dogs of Moscow are mentioned for the first time in the reports of the journalist and writer Vladimir Gilyarovsky in the latter half of the 19th century. But Poyarkov says they have been there as long as the city itself. They remain different from wolves, in particular because they exhibit pronounced "polymorphism" – a range of behavioural traits shaped in part by the "ecological niche" they occupy. And it is this ability to adapt that explains why the population density of strays is so much greater than that of wolves. "With several niches there are more resources and more opportunities."

The dogs divide into four types, he says, which are determined by their character, how they forage for food, their level of socialisation to people and the ecological niche they inhabit.

A dog seeking warmth near Moscow's Ministry of Foreign AffairsThose that remain most comfortable with people Poyarkov calls "guard dogs". Their territories tend to be garages, warehouses, hospitals and other fenced-in institutions, and they develop ties to the security guards from whom they receive food and whom they regard as masters. I've seen them in my neighbourhood near the front gate to the Central Clinical Hospital for Civil Aviation. When I pass on the other side with my dog they cross the street towards us, barking loudly."The second stage of becoming wild is where the dog is socialised to people in general, but not personally," says Poyarkov. "These are the beggars and they are excellent psychologists." He gives as an example a dog that appears to be dozing as throngs of people walk past, but who rears his head when an easy target comes into view: "The dog will come to a little old lady, start smiling and wagging his tail, and sure enough, he'll get food." These dogs not only smell who is carrying something tasty, but sense who will stop and feed them.

The beggars live in relatively small packs and are subordinate to leaders. If a dog is intelligent but occupies a low rank and does not get enough to eat, he will separate from the pack frequently to look for food. If he sees other dogs begging, he will watch and learn.

The third group comprises dogs that are somewhat socialised to people, but whose social interaction is directed almost exclusively towards other strays. Their main strategy for acquiring food is gathering scraps from the streets and the many open rubbish bins. During the Soviet period, the pickings were slim, which limited their population (as did a government policy of catching and killing them). But as Russia began to prosper in the post-Soviet years, official efforts to cull them fell away and, at the same time, many more choice offerings appeared in the bins. The strays flourished.

The last of Poyarkov's groups are the wild dogs. "There are dogs living in the city that are not socialised to people. They know people, but view them as dangerous. Their range is extremely broad, and they are ­predators. They catch mice, rats and the occasional cat. They live in the city, but as a rule near industrial complexes, or in wooded parks. They are nocturnal and walk about when there are fewer people on the streets."

My neighbourhood is in the north-west of Moscow and lies between a large wooded park and one of the canals of the Moscow river. Leaving the windows open once the thaw of spring finally took hold, I found myself pulled out of a deep slumber by a cacophony that sounded as if packs of dogs were tearing each other apart in the grounds of our apartment complex. This went on for weeks. I later learned that spring is when many strays mate – "the dog marriage season", as Russians poetically call it.

. . .

There is one special sub-group of strays that stands apart from the rest: Moscow's metro dogs. "The metro dog appeared for the simple reason that it was permitted to enter," says Andrei Neuronov, an author and specialist in animal behaviour and psychology, who has worked with Vladimir Putin's black female Labrador retriever, Connie ("a very nice pup"). "This began in the late 1980s during perestroika," he says. "When more food appeared, people began to live better and feed strays." The dogs started by riding on overground trams and buses, where supervisors were becoming increasingly thin on the ground.

A stray on the metro, seeking foodNeuronov says there are some 500 strays that live in the metro stations, especially during the colder months, but only about 20 have learned how to ride the trains. This happened gradually, first as a way to broaden their territory. Later, it became a way of life. "Why should they go by foot if they can move around by public transport?" he asks.

"They orient themselves in a number of ways," Neuronov adds. "They figure out where they are by smell, by recognising the name of the station from the recorded announcer's voice and by time intervals. If, for example, you come every Monday and feed a dog, that dog will know when it's Monday and the hour to expect you, based on their sense of time intervals from their ­biological clocks."

The metro dog also has uncannily good instincts about people, happily greeting kindly passers by, but slinking down the furthest escalator to avoid the intolerant older women who oversee the metro's electronic turnstiles. "Right outside this metro," says Neuronov, gesturing toward Frunzenskaya station, a short distance from the park where we were speaking, "a black dog sleeps on a mat. He's called Malish. And this is what I saw one day: a bowl of freshly ground beef set before him, and slowly, and ever so lazily, he scooped it up with his tongue while lying down."

. . .

Stray dogs evoke a strong reaction from Muscovites. While the model Romanova's stabbing of a stray demonstrated an example of one extreme, the statue erected in his memory depicts the other. The city government has been forced to take action to protect the strays, but with mixed results. In 2002, mayor Yuri Luzhkov enacted legislation forbidding the killing of stray animals and adopted a new strategy of sterilising them and building shelters.

Life on the streetsBut until Russians themselves adopt the practice of sterilising their pets, this will remain only a half-measure. One Russian, noting that my male Ridgeback is neutered, exclaimed: "Now, why would you want to cripple a dog in that way?" Even though the city budget allocated more than $30m to build 15 animal shelters last year, that is not nearly enough to accommodate the strays. Still, there is pressure from some quarters to return to the practice of catching and culling them. Poyarkov believes this would be dangerous. While the goal, he acknowledges, "is to do away with dogs who carry rabies, tapeworms, toxoplasmosis and other infections, what actually happens is that infected dogs and other animals outside Moscow will come into the city because the biological barrier maintained by the population of strays in Moscow is turned upside down. The environment becomes chaotic and unpredictable and the epidemiological situation worsens."Alexey Vereshchagin, 33, a graduate student who works with Poyarkov, says that Moscow probably could find a way of controlling the feared influx. But that doesn't mean he thinks strays should be removed from the capital. "I grew up with them," he says. "Personally, I think they make life in the city more interesting." Like other experts, Vereshchagin questions whether strays could ever be eliminated completely, particularly given the city's generally chaotic approach to administration.

Poyarkov concedes that sterilisation might control the number of strays, if methodically conducted. But his work suggests that the population is self-regulating anyway. The quantity of food available keeps the total steady at about 35,000 – Moscow strays are at the limit and, as a result, most pups born to strays don't reach adulthood. "If they do survive, it is only to replace an adult dog that died," Poyarkov says. Even then, their life expectancy seldom exceeds 10 years. Having spent a career studying the stray dogs of Moscow and tracing their path back towards a wilder state, he is in no hurry to see them swept from the streets.

"I am not at all convinced that Moscow should be left without dogs. Given a correct relationship to dogs, they definitely do clean the city. They keep the population of rats down. Why should the city be a concrete desert? Why should we do away with strays who have always lived next to us?"

Susanne Sternthal is a writer living in Moscow

[Anda]

It's a long read, I'm looking forward to it, because I have a lot of experience with Bucharest's street dogs. Haven't even started reading but thanks for posting it, Laura!

[Anda]

Alright, I read almost all of it. They're right. Street dogs are amazingly adapted animals. They are not the aggressive beasts that news agencies sometimes make them look like. They know where food comes from. They realize they need to be friendly towards people in order to obtain food. You'll see a couple of dogs living around each restaurant/bodega or around markets. People feed them, and in exchange, the dogs protect the area from thieves. It's a unspoken agreement. When I was growing up in the 80s in Bucharest, almost every apartment building had at least one street dog that "belonged" to the building. Tenants would bring them scraps of food every morning, be greeted with a tail wag and a quick lick on the hand. People who didn't live there were not allowed to come in the hallways without one of the "locals" coming to greet them outside and explain to the pack of dog that this was an approved visit.

I disagree with the statement that they cannot be kept indoors. Blackie, my first dog, came from the streets, with puppies. She adapted perfectly to living on the 4th floor of our apt. building. She would even go outside to potty all by herself, then return upstairs for her nap

I've never seen dogs travel by subway, but I've seen them sleep in subway stations, because it's warmer.

For the last 15 years there has been a strong spay & neutering campaign in Bucharest with the street dogs, after which they're being released in the same area they were collected from. I went back home in October '08 and I was surprised to still see dogs on the streets, but most of them adults, very few puppies - sign that the S&N is working.

And to those of you who think a street dog would be better off dead (and yes, I read it on this forum a few years ago), boo! These dogs are perfectly adapted, have pretty happy lives - of course they'd be even happier to be adopted and live inside, but they have their role in society.

The reason there are so many homeless dogs is because in the 70s and 80s, while communists were demolishing houses to build concrete jungles, the people were forced to abandon their pets, they weren't allowed (or couldn't or wouldn't) to bring their pets on the 10th floor of the little match-box-sized apartments.... It's something hard to understand... but you will never see pure bred dogs on the streets, it's not like people are dumping their unwanted pets on the street, it's more of a legacy of the communist era... hard to understand nowadays from a Western perspective...

I'll post some pictures of the street dogs of Bucharest pretty soon, I need to just grab them from Flickr.

Meanwhile, here's my "wild" street dog – Blackie - in 1987



1989



And 1997

[Anda]

Street dog protecting his apartment building - don't let that collar fool you.



Slow news day... a very typical view of street dogs napping while pedestrian traffic goes around them



Affectionate young dog in front of a patiesserie - paistry shop - she followed me for a while and ate a whole cheese pie I had bought



Suzie - the carpet queen - adopted by this carpet seller in the market



Who very proudly accepted to pose with Suzie's dad He depends on him to warn him if someone tries to steal something. The dogs get fed and looked after by the store owner, though they sleep outside.



This guy was living downtown and was very friendly (but sleepy as I had awaken him)



Old dog sunbathing - I fed this guy - named "Lion" for the entire time I was home.



I even found an Ouzo look-alike

[Dal & Mad's Mom]

I watched a special on Tv but, it was the middle of the night most likely BBC I think, about the wild dogs taking in small children and keeping them alive and later using them to help gather food for the pack. They had 3 kids who were pulled back into society and the topic was discussing their lives with the pack and the rehabilitation since they only knew the dogs from a very young child. one was only a toddler.

[juliepoudrier]

Very interesting article Laura. Thanks for posting it. And thanks to you Anda for sharing your photos and first-hand experiences and knowledge.

J.

[lrayburn]

Very interesting Laura. Thanks for posting.
Lisa

[Lewie'sMom]

Fascinating.

Kind of a "live and let live" thing; mutually beneficial for everyone. I like it.

[geonni banner]

Thanks for putting this up. Very interesting. Follow-up posts were great too.

[sea4th]

I really enjoyed reading this article. And Anda, I loved your photos, as usual, and your perspective as well. Thank you. Although I grew up in a Russian family, my experience of Russians and their dogs was still limited -- to the family and friends of. And I got a wide range of Russian perspectives on dogs over the years, from those who liked dogs to those who did not, and in no way could I say I met anyone who was a dog person. I would be the first - and it was always a source of concern. LOL. It must be an aberrant set of genes. These Russians I knew were post-WWII people. They lived through a war where food was scarce, sometimes non-existant for days at a time. Scarce food means doing all you can do to feed your family and so to say dogs at the time were a luxury, is an understatement. Prior to that, the Soviet Union days where it one worked hard to feed a family and keep a roof over their heads. Still, my family lived a distance from a large city, and did have a pet, a dog or two. Prior to that, my grandfather would tell me of his boyhood prior to the Revolution in 1917, and his childhood was filled with dogs. (I don't know what it is with Russians and knives, but he told of one of his dogs being stabbed to death by a neighbor).

Then, my next exposure was when I got Lena in 1991, my first Caucasian Ovcharka, one of the first in this country and it was because of her that I learned of a passion that some Russians have for their dogs, which I found interesting -- because these were people more like me than my family. Of course, these weren't street dogs, but still, because of the article it was good to know that there are others like me in Russia and that there is a sense of benevolence toward these animals on the part of the Russians.

So to read that dogs are not only part of the street scene in a large city like Moscow, but even considered by some a necessary part of city life, according to people interviewed in this article, did me a lot of good to read.

In a century of tumultuous change, it would be interesting to know how these dogs and the attitudes toward them evolved in Russia.

ETA - Sorry for the rambling, but it's kind of nice to see that there is a soft spot in the Russian heart for these dogs, how remarkable these street dogs are - not only in Russia, but anywhere there are humans -- how inextricably linked they are with us.

[JohnLloydJones]

I've never been to Russia and the street dogs of India, where I have lived, may be somewhat different, but yes, street dogs were a common sight in Bombay and every apartment building had it's own pack, who lived off scraps, self caught rats and whatever else they could get hold of. They were cautious, but readily came up people who they saw were friendly. I've seen similar street dogs in Egypt too. Last year, my daughters sent a calendar of Bombay street dogs -- the proceeds of the sales go towards spay/neuter, giving rabies and other shots and on-site first-aid.

I had read that article elsewhere and the one thing that caught my attention at the time was

His observations have led Poyarkov to conclude that this leader is not necessarily the strongest or most dominant dog, but the most intelligent – and is acknowledged as such.

That puts a little twist on the traditional Alpha theory.

[desertranger]

That's interesting. Loose dogs here are a danger to people and have become a major problem. There was even a thought put out to put a bounty on them.

[Dal & Mad's Mom]

I've never been to Russia and the street dogs of India, where I have lived, may be somewhat different, but yes, street dogs were a common sight in Bombay and every apartment building had it's own pack, who lived off scraps, self caught rats and whatever else they could get hold of. They were cautious, but readily came up people who they saw were friendly. I've seen similar street dogs in Egypt too. Last year, my daughters sent a calendar of Bombay street dogs -- the proceeds of the sales go towards spay/neuter, giving rabies and other shots and on-site first-aid.

I had read that article elsewhere and the one thing that caught my attention at the time was

That puts a little twist on the traditional Alpha theory.

This is one of the stories I found but, not the show. They showed where the kids were living, talked to the neighbors who might have seen the kids.
This article says this boy was there since 3 months. I find that hard to imagine or believe but, a toddler I could see.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/imported...m-13674973.html

[JohnLloydJones]

That's interesting. Loose dogs here are a danger to people and have become a major problem. There was even a thought put out to put a bounty on them.

Loose dogs in the US are a very different thing from the street dogs the article talks about. The Russian dogs (and the ones in India and other countries where this is common) are highly adapted to living in those conditions and very rarely are any danger. In fact, they are mostly accepted and welcomed. People go out of their way to give them food. The dogs themselves become attached to the people of their territory. That's a very different situation to the dog down the road that escaped from someone's back yard.

[Dal & Mad's Mom]

Anda I'm surprsed those dogs look so diverse. Ferral dogs in america seem to favor smooth coat.

It makes me remember being a kid 30+ years ago when everyone dog walked around town and you knew the dogs names and petted them. You could tell when there was a dog in heat in town as one person hound walked miles to get there. He was always there too. "oh, look there goes mazurik's hound dog"lol

[JohnLloydJones]

Here's a pic from the calendar I mentioned.

[Laurae]

These personal stories and photos of actual street dogs in different areas of the world are amazing. Thanks for sharing, everyone!

[echoica]

Amazing article...VERY interesting! Thanks everyone for sharing

[sea4th]

I think in this country we've grown away from the "real world", for lack of a better term. We have everything sanitized, orderly and our excesses, while normal for us, might not be for the rest of the world and if something upsets this precarious balance of our lives, we want to sue or put a bounty on it, as DR said.

If you're able to take a giant step back and look with an untainted eye, this symbiotic relationship between street dogs and humans, to me appears the more natural one. No it's not perfect and the efforts to spay and neuter is to be commended, IMO, but that there exists the mentality that these dogs are a natural part of life and don't need to be exterminated, restores some of my faith in mankind.

[Anda]

Anda I'm surprsed those dogs look so diverse. Ferral dogs in america seem to favor smooth coat.

And here are a few more examples of different looks (in case you haven't gotten tired of looking at stray dog pics )

Golden Eyes - this was such a friendly girl!



Young dog



Pretty eyes basking in the sun



Middle of the day nap, next to a food store - there were also a couple of bowls of water and food in the vecinity



Same place, different dog. As you can see, they don't look skinny at all And if you dare offer them some bread, you're lucky if they come sniff it - they're used to eating meat scraps and bones - giving them bread is almost an offense






And pretty sure this dog's father was a Dalmation



This dude was at the bus station every single morning. He was my friend, super friendly and wanting nothing but to be petted and scratched and baby talked to Every morning there were napkins or little bags with bones and meat pieces layed around the area where he was hanging out. It's very common that people would save leftovers and bring them the next morning and just put them out for dogs (usually specific dogs) before they hop on the bus to go to work.



In the last week of my stay in Bucharest I went to the store with my mom and bought a huge bag of rib bones with meat and started handing them out to every single dog I'd meet And a few cats too, for good measure