155 lines
6.1 KiB
Markdown
155 lines
6.1 KiB
Markdown
---
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created_at: '2013-04-29T21:29:49.000Z'
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title: Stray Dogs Master Complex Moscow Subway System (2010)
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url: http://abcnews.go.com/International/Technology/stray-dogs-master-complex-moscow-subway-system/story?id=10145833#.UX7lveJI47z
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author: ColinWright
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points: 68
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story_text: ''
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comment_text:
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num_comments: 30
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story_id:
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story_title:
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story_url:
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parent_id:
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created_at_i: 1367270989
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_tags:
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- story
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- author_ColinWright
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- story_5628936
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objectID: '5628936'
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year: 2010
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---
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Every so often, if you ride Moscow's crowded subways, you notice that
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the commuters around you include a dog - [a stray
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dog,](/Travel/BusinessTravel/story?id=4305319&page=1) on its own, just
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[using the handy underground
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Metro](/Technology/video/moscows-stray-dogs-master-subways-10106879) to
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beat the traffic and get from A to B.
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Yes, some of Moscow's stray dogs have figured out how to use the city's
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[immense and complex subway
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system,](/International/wireStory?id=8928776)getting on and off at their
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regular stops. The human commuters around them are so accustomed to it
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that they rarely seem to notice.
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Play
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"In Moscow there are all sorts of stray dogs, but... there are no stupid
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dogs," Dr. Andrey Poyarkov, a biologist who has studied Moscow's strays
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for 30 years, told ABC News.
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"In Moscow there are all sorts of stray dogs, but... there are no stupid
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dogs," Dr. Andrey Poyarkov, a biologist who has studied Moscow's strays
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for 30 years, told ABC News.
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As many as 35,000 [stray dogs](/Health/story?id=8150218&page=1) live in
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Russia's capital city. They can be found everywhere, from markets to
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construction sites to underground passageways, scrounging for food and
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trying to survive.
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Taking the subway is just one of many tactics the strays have come up
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with for surviving in the manmade wilderness around them.
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"The street is tough and it's survival of the fittest," says Poyarkov.
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"These clever dogs know people much better than people know them."
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Poyarkov says that only a small fraction of strays have figured out how
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to navigate the maze that is Moscow's subway system.
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[What's most
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impressive](/Technology/AmazingAnimals/story?id=7580705&page=1) about
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the subway dogs, says Poyarkov's graduate student, Alexei Vereshchagin,
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is their ability to deal with the Metro's loud noises and packed crowds,
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distractions that domesticated dogs often cannot handle.
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**[To keep up with news about Russia follow ABC News' Alex Marquardt on
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Twitter](http://twitter.com/MarquardtA)**
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"It's stressful even for people standing in a crowd," he says, "and the
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dogs are lying down so no one is seeing them, so anyone can put feet on
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them. But they get used to this."
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ABC News found a female stray in the Kievskaya station, and barely
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managed to follow her as she zipped between the legs of the bustling
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travelers around her to catch a ride on the Koltsevaya Line.
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Once on board, she settled down on the floor among the feet and legs,
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even dozed a bit, and occasionally got up for a brief conversation with
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a friendly human.
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She seemed to sense that such close quarters were no place to appear
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threatening.
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## Animal Intelligence
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Author Eugene Linden, who has been writing about [animal
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intelligence](/video/playerIndex?id=6306597) for 40 years, told ABC News
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that Moscow's resourceful stray dogs are just one of what are now
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thousands of recorded examples of wild, feral and[domesticated
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animals](/International/teaching-dog-behavior-techniques-worthless/story?id=7653272)
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demonstrating what appears, at least, to be what humans might call
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flexible open-ended reasoning and conscious thought.
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Linden cites a wide variety of creatures ranging from captive orangutans
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and otters who frequently and slyly "trade" with their keepers, to a
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[British cat famous for regularly taking the
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bus](/Travel/wireStory?id=9602042) to a squirrel in Oklahoma who became
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a local hero when people began to notice that it regularly obeyed
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traffic signals when crossing a busy street.
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"The take-away is that animals are not just passive in this," Linden
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told ABC News. "They are figuring out what we're about and how they can
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game the system, and work it to their advantage as well."
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Moscow's strays have also been observed obeying traffic lights, says
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Vereshchagin. He and Poyarkov report the strays have developed a variety
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of techniques for hunting food in the wild metropolis.
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Sometimes a pack will send out a smaller, cuter member apparently
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realizing it will be more successful at begging than its bigger, less
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attractive counterparts.
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Another trick the researchers report seeing is the bark-and-grab: a dog
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will suddenly jump up behind a person in the street who is holding some
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snack, enough of a surprise that the food gets dropped for the grabbing.
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The female we followed on the Kievskaya Line seemed at ease as she
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traveled among all the people packed in around her, and with reason:
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Moscow's subway strays even have their own statue in the Mendeleyevskaya
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station.
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It commemorates Malchik, a stray who lived there until he was stabbed by
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a fashion model in 2002 who didn't like how Malchik barked at her
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terrier.
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## Learn How to Live With Them
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Outraged Muscovites erected the statue. Passersby now rub the Malchik's
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shiny bronze nose for good luck.
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Despite this public admiration for the strays and their survival skills,
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many Muscovites still see the tens of thousands of homeless dogs as a
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big problem.
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"We have to solve it," Anastasia Markina of the Alliance for Animal
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Rights of Moscow said. "They're not guilty that they became homeless. We
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should solve this problem in a humane way."
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There have been sterilization campaigns, and city dogcatchers manage to
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get some strays into pounds, but it's all had little effect on the
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overall stray population.
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Vereshchagin thinks that Moscow's residents need to accept the dogs as a
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part of life in the city.
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"It's not really easy to completely move the dogs out of the streets,"
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he says. "I guess we just have to... learn how to live with them."
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The stray dogs of Moscow - including those who use the subway - have
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themselves already done a lot to work for peaceful coexistence.
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