It seems to me that Ukraine gets a bad
press when it comes to animal welfare and whilst undoubtedly there is an
excessive amount of stray cats and dogs on the streets and that some of them
will be abused, the majority of Ukrainians I have seen, care a lot about
animals, both pets and feral.
When I first came here, I was struck not be
the sheer number of feral cats there were but by the fact that a very high
proportion of them seemed well fed and healthy. After a while, I began to
notice that everywhere that the cats would congregate, there were little trays
of left over food and water. One July morning whilst on our endless search for
the perfect flat, Tania and I sat down in one of the suburbs to have a drink
before continuing our Odyssey. There were a few stray cats around, not
particularly friendly but not nervous either. Eventually an old Babushka
arrived with a veritable sack full of food and systematically started dividing
it into small plastic cartons and putting it down for the cats. More arrived
from all over, adults, kittens, all, for the most part healthy. The Babushka
spent about 25 minutes making sure the cats were fed before wandering over to a
point about 25m away where three stray dogs were waiting, looking simultaneously
jealous and expectant. The Babushka brought out some left overs for the dogs
too, stuff more suitable for the canine genus such as bones and junks of meat.
Tania and I watched this little show for about 45 minutes. It was obviously a
daily occurrence yet the Babushka wanted nothing from the animals, she neither
expected or wanted any friendship from them, she was just making sure that
these animals had enough food to survive. Don’t think that this is an isolated incident, either, it happens in
virtually every street in the city.
Another pointer towards Ukrainians love of
animals is the number of pets and pet stores there are. Every morning I look
out of our kitchen window I see a parade of dogs walking their owners. I am not
talking about the latest nouveau rich accessory poodle that you see on the
streets of central Odessa, I am talking everything from pedigree Labradors to
nutty mongrels, all well looked after and obviously loved. As the dogs parade
past, the local pet cats all sit half a meter from a dogs leads length away
with an expression of pure scorn. Everywhere you go in Odessa there are well
stock pet stores with knowledgeable staff, hell there are even pet pharmacies.
Beautiful, healthy and homeless. |
So when I hear or read about animal cruelty
in Ukraine, I think about the UK and other western countries, where if an
animal is not “owned” it is “euthanized” to use
that pretentious, politically correct term that simply means killed. So now
tell me whose animals are better off?