5 February 2015

PovoDOG, established by Volnoe Delo Oleg Deripaska Foundation, was opened on February 5, 2014 in Sochi, two days before the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games. Since then, over 300 dogs were rehomed. About 90% of them were adopted by locals and 10% taken abroad, to the United States, Germany, UK etc.

Soon after the opening, the sanctuary was upgraded and revamped with 250 wired kennels built on a concrete footing. The 4-sq.m pens with wooden doghouses and a walk-out area are spacious enough for 250 pets that now inhabit the shelter.

In mid-2014 PovoDOG also built a set of 50 quarantine cells and a medical facility. The quarantine facility, like the main set of kennels, has self-generated power and water supply. Now it hosts several puppies awaiting vaccination.

PovoDOG created media buzz when Volnoe Delo Oleg Deripaska Foundation opened the sanctuary to counter dogs’ culling backed by Sochi administration ahead of the Olympics. Thousands of strays roaming around Olympic venues were labeled as ‘biological waste’ by a local pest control company. PovoDOG’s volunteers have picked up over 250 mutts from the streets of Sochi back then.

In late March, amid numerous adoption requests from U.S. citizens, PovoDOG sent 10 pooches to Washington D.C. where all of them have been briefly adopted.

The shelter is also working to dispatch several dogs to UK following adoption requests to the web site www.povodog.com/en  

The head of Volnoe Delo Foundation Tamara Rumyantseva said, “A project that was established in response to dogs’ mass extermination ahead of the Olympics, is still up and running. Oleg Deripaska Foundation supports PovoDOG and promotes an idea that a stray dog is trendy and every bit as good as a purebred pet.”