A story of how animals abandoned due to the escape of residents are rescued in Shebekino

Yelena Petrova, Natalia Seibil

A hound is a hunting hound dog. His owners were urgently evacuated in early June, given 10 minutes to gather, as well as thousands of other Shebekins. They were not allowed to take animals — there were not enough places for people. Gonchak remained. The house where the dog lived with his owner-hunter in Tavolzhanka, bombed. There was only one pipe left of him. The dog also got it.

Galina Steblovskaya found him, wounded, burned, sick, and carried him out in her arms:

— When we took him away, he could no longer walk. The arrival was, and he was whipped all over the muzzle, the only thing that the dog closed his eyes. The entire front part was cut. And it's also hot, and there are all these maggots around, you know. After all, this is a village, the dogs are not treated, they all have pyroplasmosis. The shepherd is wounded, all paws are burned, and also pyroplasmosis. He was already lying in someone else's yard, people, neighbors saw, and we were told. We came to feed, and the guys were sitting there, drinking. They told us: our neighbors have a shepherd dog, but it's not theirs. Took away.

Gonchak is not the real name of the dog, so Galina Nikolaevna named him. She doesn't know exactly what the owners' names are either, but she hopes that the owner will show up. The dog waits for him all the time.

Galina Nikolaevna directs the Society for the Protection of Animals in Shebekino. She also has in Oil Pier charity shelter for homeless animals. She didn't evacuate herself. Instead, with the support of the district administration, Galina Steblovskaya day and night rescued animals that had lost everything overnight: owners, food, care and were left alone with the war.

Ruslan Degtyarev, head of the Environmental Management Department of the administration of the Shebekinsky city district, together with Galina Nikolaevna and other volunteers, delivered feed for the remaining animals from the first day:

— I have been traveling since the first of June, delivering feed. I went with my workmates. Fed, watered, taken out. It is difficult to get into the apartments, who managed to bring the key from the owners, who did not have time, who could not. Unfortunately, it is impossible to take out all the animals.

Then Galina Nikolaevna began to advise the owners to return for a while to find their pets.

— We called the owners, gathered near the checkpoint, but so that the soldiers could not see. I loaded these people into my car, took them through the checkpoint, I could do it. We drove to Shebekin. I hid the car from drones in the forest. The defense ministry, in agreement with the head of the administration Zhdanov, took these people and delivered them to the addresses. They took them along with the animals, and I took them out from there.

Galina Vladimirovna Zholudeva was placed in a temporary accommodation facility for refugees in Stary Oskol is 150 km from Shebekin. There was a cat in the apartment. She phoned with Steblovskaya and came by taxi to pick up the pet. The cat waited for the hostess for 10 days.

Galina Nikolaevna, without exaggeration, has hundreds of such stories. With the help of the administration, animal rescuers organized 27 dog enclosures so that owners could pick up their pets from there. They took out, some on foot, some on a bicycle:

— The girl from the Sandy Street in Tavolzhanka, where the DRG was, took out her dogs. We went with a guy, left the car far away, and she ran back and forth. She asked the guy to go with her because she was scared alone. And she took the dogs on foot, barefoot, so as not to step on any «petals» («NI» — antipersonnel mines).

At first we drove armored cars, then we realized that it was better to drive our own. No one paid attention to them in civilian cars, especially if it was hidden in a fishing line when they went out to feed dogs in abandoned villages and villages. And as soon as an armored car appears — that's it, immediately wait for the shelling.

Now people have begun to help the military and refugees more and pay less attention to animals. But there are good people, Galina Steblovskaya is sure. She says about the volunteers that they appeared after it became quite scary, and in the first weeks local people did everything.

Local veterinarians treated wounded animals for free. Entrepreneurs gave free feed. Ruslan Dyagterev says:

— On the territory of the district we have enterprises engaged in feed. They just gave them to us, helped us. Both individual entrepreneurs and volunteers helped. Mostly, of course, individual entrepreneurs. I personally delivered 4 tons of dog and cat food, laid out in feeders.

And he was not the only one: when it was necessary, everyone got behind the wheel, and Ruslan, and Galina Nikolaevna, and the head of the administration, Vladimir Zhdanov. Natalia Ozerova, Head of the Public Relations Department of the Shebekino Administration, says:

— The administration of Shebekino has been doing this since the very first days. The volunteers were with us. The administration was directly involved in this, organized and supervised this issue. I got food, volunteers contacted us. We gave them kilograms, tons, provided cars, protection, went out in armored vehicles. When there were attacks, from the first of June, when the operational situation was very bad, our guys, together with volunteers in armored vehicles, went out in protection, fed and watered the animals. Where they could get to them. They climbed over fences, poured water into drinkers, laid out food.

Galina Nikolaevna and other volunteers continue to rescue cats and dogs. If someone from Shebekin wants to find out about their pets or pick them up, Galina Steblovskaya asks to call this phone:

8- 910- 369 83 43

You can support animal defenders in Shebekin here.