A row over the city's dog pound may damage the nation's hopes for European Union membership. An animal rights group says the city needs to do a much better job.
A videotape that purports to show emaciated and ill-treated animals at a facility operated by the city’s official animal control agency has re-ignited a longstanding dispute between the agency and a nonprofit animal welfare group.
The Society for the Protection of Animals (SOS), an international nongovernmental organization, continues to be critical of the city animal control agency, and is warning that the way the nation treats its animals could stand in the way of Ukraine’s eventual entry into the European Union.
The city agency, Animals in the City, collects stray dogs and cats from throughout the capital and transports them to a shelter it operates in the village of Borodyanka. The animals are put down after having been kept at the shelter for ten days.
SOS operates a shelter in Pyrohovo, but sterilizes the animals it collects. It does not receive government funds.
The two organizations disagree about the way that the city should deal with its population of stray dogs, which the city figures could be as high as 50,000.
SOS advocates sterilization and the creation of a network of shelters scattered throughout the city, and argues that sterilizing the animals costs half as much as euthanasia.
The video that SOS showed to the Post was allegedly secretly taped by visitors to the city’s shelter during late December. It showed cages that were exposed to the elements, some of which housed dogs and cats together. The floor of one kennel was covered in a pool of blood, apparently from a dogfight. Another showed a dog chewing on the carcass of a dead dog. Water dishes in the kennels appeared to be either empty or frozen, and feeding trays were empty. Some of the dogs were emaciated, with their ribs clearly visible.
SOS President Tamara Tarnawska said that the video proved that conditions at the official city shelter had not improved since the agency drew public scrutiny last year after a Ukrainian television program, Without Taboo, questioned its practices. The program triggered a wave of equally critical reports in the local press.
Last November, after Animals in the City head Nina Samofarova reported on her agency’s work to the city, government officials ordered that the agency’s financial records be audited, that potential deficiencies be addressed and, if necessary, that its contract with Animals in the City be terminated.
Today, Samofarova still heads Animals in the City, and the municipal organization continues to work under contract to the city as its animal control arm.
Samofarova said that since SOS began drawing attention to her organization, government agencies have stepped up their inspections. “So far this year we have had four inspections, including the tax administration and other auditors,” she said. “They have had no complaints.”
Samofarova said that she was aware of the SOS video but had not seen it. She also said that the day it was made the veterinary commission determined that the facility’s conditions were satisfactory. Samofarova said that the dogs are fed twice daily. If dogs appeared to be emaciated, she said, it is because they were in that condition when they were collected and brought to the shelter.
“We keep the dogs for ten days,” she said. “They could not become so emaciated during that time.”
SOS continues top claim that Animals in the City treats the dogs and cats it collects inhumanly.
“The problem [with stray dogs] will never be decided by killing,” SOS’ Tarnawska said. “There should be sterilization centers and kennels in every district of the city. Then the dogs will not multiply.”
Samofarova said that it was not possible to build a number of additional dog pounds in the city, and that after sterilization the strays would need to be freed. That wouldn’t solve the city’s problem with feral animals, she said.
She said her main concern was to clean the city from the dangerous animals.
Tarnawska said that Animals in the City is primarily motivated by profit, since it is paid to euthanize strays.
“We want to raise public awareness and protect these animals from being massacred,” she said. “Unfortunately, the international community seems to be more concerned about the situation in Ukraine than Ukrainians are themselves.”
Tarnawska said that Ukraine has neither ratified nor signed the European Convention on Animals Protection.
“Ukraine wants to get into the European Union,” Tarnawska said. “But the regulations there are tough, and without legal protections for animals, it is impossible.”
She said that SOS plans to picket the city administration later this month, demanding that the situation be changed. If nobody listens, she said, “we will press on through the Council of Europe with the help of the international community.”
