The difference between animal welfare in the United States and Russia can, in a sense, be summed up in one word: anesthesia. Veterinarians have easy access to it in America; their counterparts in Russia can actually get arrested for using ketamine, an important anesthesia often used in combination with another drug when operating on pets.
In a recent newsletter, the Moscow-based animal organization VITA (Latin for "life") related a tale about a local veterinarian named Konstantin who agreed to spay a woman's cat. On the day Konstantin was scheduled to perform the surgery, a man and a woman met the vet and escorted him into a kitchen, where the sterilization would take place. As Konstantin began to inject the ketamine, the man stopped him. The man was working with the Drug Circulation Control Committee, and he was here to bust the vet.
"The inspectors of the drug committee arranged this set up to catch Konstantin red-handed while using ketamine," VITA wrote in its newsletter. "All the actions of the unaware veterinarian have been filmed with a hidden camera...Konstantin, who only performed his duty as a vet, is now being tried. He is charged with illegal drug spreading through 'injection to a cat.'"
Russian authorities banned veterinarians from using ketamine in 1998, even though U.S. vets routinely use it on animals. After much public protest, Russian authorities lifted the ban in January 2004, but required all vets to obtain a license to use the drug. The catch? The ministry tasked with issuing the licenses apparently won't give them to vets.
This bureaucratic red tape complicates an already muddled animal-control situation in Russia and the dozen former Soviet republics that comprise the Commonwealth of Independent States. The people who call these nations home are only now learning about the western methods of animal welfare. Services and operations that Americans take for granted are just in their infancy in Russia or the Ukraine or Armenia: pet adoption, animal shelters, and spay or neuter programs, among them.
"Spaying and neutering is still largely unheard of [in Russia] among owned pets," said Betsy McFarland, director of communications for The HSUS's Companion Animals and Equine Protection section. "And even with the strays, most felt that it was acceptable and appropriate to spay the stray females, but that it was unnecessary—or even inhumane—to neuter the stray males."
That's assuming, of course, that veterinarians could secure a license to use ketamine in the first place.
Go West, Young Shelters
Clearly, these countries are in the early stages of westernizing their animal welfare, a important consideration to remember for any foreign organization that plans to help in the transition. During two days in May 2003, Humane Society International hosted a workshop in Moscow, which was open to animal welfare workers across the former Soviet Union. More than 40 representatives from 11 countries participated, attending short workshops on "Humane Animal Control/Population Control" and "Establishing Ties with Officials and Veterinarians" and "Shelter Management and Operations."
"When we organized the workshop, we had to remember that many of these shelters and workers were not at the same level of their American counterparts," said Kelly O'Meara, HSI program manager for Asia and Africa. "They're dealing with some very fundamental issues about shelter operations and public attitudes toward companion animals."
How fundamental?
"We visited about four shelters," noted McFarland, a workshop participant last year. "None of them were what we really consider to be shelter facilities here in the United States. In Moscow, they ranged from an apartment with a few cats and a dog being cared for by an elderly lady...to a rented property with outside pens and dog houses that housed over 100 dogs year round, run by a gentleman who has another full-time job.
"However, I remember being pretty impressed with how good the animals looked," McFarland added. "For the less-than-desirable shelter setting, the people doing the work obviously care very much for the animals, and it shows."
That attitude, however, doesn't necessarily translate to Russian society at large. Not only do Moscow and other cities in Russia have a problem with stray dogs—tens of thousands of dogs are said to roam the capital city—but Russians themselves apparently prefer purebreds to mixed breeds, an attitude that makes the adoption of the latter difficult.
That's assuming, of course, that adoptions were commonplace in Russia. They're not. In Moscow, for example, citizens tend to purchase their dogs at a centralized, open-air animal market, which trades in all sorts of animals, from turtles to purebred pooches. The few shelters that operate in Moscow tend not to have formal adoption programs. In fact, noted McFarland, the "shelter owners are content with maintaining the status quo and having the animals in their care live out their days there."
A New Attitude
Animal welfare workers in the Commonwealth of Independent States appear to want to change things for the better, however. Which is good, noted McFarland, because these workers have a lot of obstacles in front of them, including a lack of government funding, no information-sharing among shelters, and little money for public-education campaigns.
"The attitudes of the animal advocates and activists in Russia and beyond are positive," O'Meara said. "Granted, some of the countries in the former Soviet Union are moving at a faster pace than others, so those people are making more progress in the animal welfare movement. But one of our goals is to help these workers and activists share information, so that those who are moving faster can educate the others. We've already heard some positive movement in that regard."
To capitalize on that positive movement, HSI and The HSUS are heading back to Russia in July for another workshop. This time, they'll be setting up shop in St. Petersburg, from July 8-10, where they'll be covering topics from A to Z, from animal care/control to fundraising to sterilization field projects. Attendance, O'Meara predicted, should be even better this year: Between 60 and 70 representatives from animal welfare groups throughout the former Soviet Union will be there.
"With each workshop, we hope not only to provide the basics in fundraising and shelter operations, but also provide a forum in which these people can exchange ideas and best practices," said O'Meara. "Who knows? Perhaps one of them will even figure out how to convince Russia to give veterinarians access to ketamine."
