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- October disease: death of a child from stray dogs is being investigated in Krasnoyarsk
October disease: death of a child from stray dogs is being investigated in Krasnoyarsk
In Krasnoyarsk, after the death of a boy who, according to the local Investigative Committee, was mauled by stray dogs, Irina Muzyka, the head of the public animal protection organization My Dog, was detained. Her organization owns one of the largest shelters in the region and is the executor of the contract for trapping stray dogs. However, experts point out that the low efficiency of such work is often associated not with unscrupulous contractors, but with the lack of a system and control at the regional level. Residents of the village where the tragedy occurred were unfamiliar with the name of the detainee. For more information about why there are still white spots in the case of the death of a child, as well as in the whole system of working with neglected animals, see the Izvestia article.
How the child died
The tragedy in the Krasnoyarsk Territory occurred on October 25. In the early morning, a 10-year-old boy left his house on the territory of the Teremok gardening association in the Berezovsky district (in fact, this is a cottage village in the suburbs of Krasnoyarsk) and headed across the field to a shepherd friend to graze cattle with him. However, according to the regional investigative department of the Investigative Committee of Russia, stray dogs attacked the child on the way — the boy died on the spot from his injuries.
Investigators and criminologists of the Investigative Committee of Russia are working at the scene of a criminal case initiated in connection with the death of a teenager as a result of a dog attack on October 25.
A criminal case has been opened under the article on the provision of services that do not meet the requirements for the safety of life and health of consumers, resulting in the death of a person by negligence, and the chairman of the public organization responsible for trapping animals, Irina Muzyka, the head of the My Dog organization, has also been detained.
According to the SU IC, it was with this organization that a municipal contract was signed on September 22 to carry out activities with stray animals, including trapping them. It is also claimed that "in October 2025, the organization received three reports of aggressive dogs attacking humans, but the organization did not locate the animals or capture them."
Other versions of the child's death
Those working in the field of the treatment of stray dogs in the Krasnoyarsk Territory speak about Irina Muzyka with respect. They contrast its activities with other companies that are engaged in trapping in the region and are distinguished by a "knifing attitude and sadistic working methods." It is noted that Irina is "one of the few who is responsible for the problem of neglected animals," and she has been working on contracts for several years.
Detention of the chairman of a public organization responsible for trapping animals
Marina Melnichenko, the head of the neighboring Alkin House shelter, calls her a decent person both in relation to people and animals. Irina Muzyka's main business is a shelter, but it is expensive to maintain it.
— In our city, they do not allocate money to help such organizations, and there is no city shelter either. For Irina, trapping is a way to keep a shelter with 640 dogs, a way to feed them," she told Izvestia.
Marina Melnichenko added that on October 25, after the tragedy, they went to the farm to find aggressive dogs, but they caught only two and did not find any more.
Several Izvestia interlocutors questioned whether dogs were the cause of the child's death: bears had previously been seen near the farm. Anna Feldman, founder of the Kotospas Foundation, referring to colleagues from the Krasnoyarsk Territory, noted that "the results of the examination are not ready yet" and "any animal, including a bear, could have killed the child."
However, the Regional Investigative Committee stressed that the cause of the tragedy had been established — the boy had died from stray dogs. The facts of appeals to the trapping service have also been established, although the My Dog organization denies this, claiming that there have been no applications from the farm since April. They stated that they were ready to document this, but at the time of publication, Izvestia had not received these documents.
Local residents told the media that there are really a lot of dogs around the village. And the management of the Teremok farm confirmed to Izvestia that there are problems with stray dogs, however, as well as with bears.
— We have applied to the district services for both bears and dogs. Moreover, on the day of the tragedy, a pack of dogs attacked an adult resident of our village in about the same place. — The child died from bites of wild dogs, but the exact circumstances will be determined by the investigation.
According to representatives of the village, the official trappers did not come to the place at all, so the farm turned to paid services, collecting money from the entire garden association. But they couldn't help either. At the same time, the partnership clarified that they did not know the name of Irina Muzykova, they did not directly contact her with requests for capture. Izvestia sent a request to the municipal administration with a request to clarify the procedure for interacting with contractors, as well as dealing with requests from Teremka, but no response had been received by the time of publication.
Then the dogs in the village began to be caught on their own and taken for sterilization. However, according to the SNT, after chipping, the dogs were returned back to their place of residence: in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, there is an OSVV system (capture–sterilization–vaccination–return), in which, after capture and sterilization, the animals are released back to their natural environment.
— When the accident happened, our residents who were on the spot saw that the dogs were sitting in the distance with green tags in their ears. Not all of them, but there were chiped ones among them," the Teremka said.
What is known about the OSVV system
Many were quick to name the OSVV system as the main reason for the incident. For example, Valery Gavrilin, president of the Russian Federation of Sports and Applied Dog Breeding, said that this program should be banned in the country altogether, and "where there is an OSWR, there are packs of stray dogs." He argues that the trapping systems are not working at full capacity, because many benefit from dogs breeding and bringing in new contracts. Moreover, he says, "tagged" dogs very often give birth — those who were allegedly released after sterilization, the reality of which no one has checked, Gavrilin said.
Olga Belonosova, an analyst at the National Committee for Environmental Safety, also opposes the OSWR. She admits that the main problem is the lack of money in the federal budget, which is why dogs have to be released back into their natural environment. But the partial implementation of the OSV program only leads to the fact that the remaining dogs not covered by this procedure continue to breed and there are only more of them. She gives an example of statistics for some regions. And he calls "irrevocable capture with destruction" the most effective. Without the "liquidation" of unclaimed dogs, she says, all shelters will be filled in two weeks.
Natalia Tsvetkova, coordinator of the RAY Foundation, however, emphasizes that in regions where competent and uncorrupted structures are involved in OSV, the program is being implemented successfully — she cites the example of St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Moscow regions. Galina Demyanova, director of the animal Welfare Foundation "We are responsible...", gives an example of the work on the OSVV program in Volgograd. For the sixth year in a row, one organization has been doing this, which does not work under a contract, but on a municipal assignment, and during this time the number of neglected animals has decreased from 12 thousand to 4 thousand.
Can the regions work effectively
Alexandra Nurieva, the head of the Give a Paw movement, emphasizes that the reason is not federal legislation, but poor local governance. According to her, regions with responsible contractors, government control, and interaction with local zoo-helping NGOs are working effectively.
— We need a common federal database of neglected animals. Various regional registration practices or its complete absence do not provide an understanding of the scale of the problem, nor an understanding of the effectiveness of the work of local authorities, she believes.
Yuri Koretskikh, founder and executive director of the Alliance of Animal Defenders, emphasizes that the current practices of the regions working with animals without owners are radically different from each other: from the OSVV program to mass trapping followed by killing. He is sure that such a situation "creates chaos and significantly reduces work efficiency, while allowing the use of cruel practices."
— The situation is developing positively, as a rule, where work with stray animals is approached comprehensively.: This is an OSV program, but also the construction of shelters, control over contractors, population monitoring, and work with animal owners," the source told Izvestia. — When some of the above measures are not implemented, there are many more problems.
Vladimir Burmatov, first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Ecology, Natural Resources and Environmental Protection, emphasizes that it is possible to build a system, and cites Yakutsk as an example, where a large shelter—republican center has appeared. Currently, there is no euthanasia of animals in the region, although a few years ago, when they could be killed right on the street, the situation was much worse.
"An enthusiastic girl and the governor, who supported her, solved the problem: they gave the money to someone who is really passionate about this topic," the source told Izvestia. — They adopt a thousand dogs a year! The situation on the streets is not perfect yet, but give them a few more years.
As for the Krasnoyarsk Territory, there are no state or municipal animal shelters at all, there are only eight private shelters with a total capacity of 3 thousand places, which contained 1,487 animals as of January 1, 2024, according to the report of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation "Formation of a responsible attitude towards animals in society." Moreover, the region has not approved a methodology for monitoring the population of animals without owners, and their accounting is not carried out. In recent years, more than 160 million rubles have been allocated for trapping.
But many regions have the same problems with trapping, says Karina Kononova, head of the communications department of the Nika Foundation: municipal contracts have very vague technical specifications, there is no single dispatch room and transparent accounting of appeals, weak control over the execution of applications, and failures in prevention.
Izvestia sent a request to the government of the Krasnoyarsk Territory.
The main problem is the people
Vladimir Burmatov called what happened in Krasnoyarsk the "October disease": in autumn, animals without owners regularly appear in the farming community — dogs, which were taken in the spring so that children could play with them in the country, and in September they were simply left in the countryside. And after a month, the dogs gather in packs.
"We need to see if administrative fines have been applied to people who got rid of dogs in the Krasnoyarsk Territory," says the State Duma deputy, noting that the latest high—profile events were related specifically to the owner's animals.
Valery Alekseev, head of the Bureau of Investigation of the Popular Front, emphasizes that the most important step is to increase the responsibility of dog owners.
"You can endlessly allocate funds for trapping and sterilization, but if at the same time people continue to throw dogs out on the street, the money will never be enough," he told Izvestia. — We need a system where each dog, domestic or neglected, is assigned to a specific responsible person: the owner, shelter or other specialized organization. Only then will there be order.
Anna Feldman also emphasizes that the whole problem of neglect is only from owning animals and the lack of regulation of this area.
— If people kept raccoons in their homes, we would have packs of raccoons, — says Anna Feldman. — Unfortunately, bite statistics do not take into account the difference between an owner's dog and a stray dog, and opponents of humane programs for the treatment of stray animals often operate on it. But the problem needs to be solved at the federal level by introducing registration and control of animal breeding.
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