2014
Strays took the spotlight during the 2014 Olympic Games. Authorities were poisoning the dogs to clean up the city streets, while a group of animal advocates was working day and night to save as many as they could. The story made international headlines and inspired two dog lovers in NJ to help the rescue efforts and so Sochi Dogs was born.
A makeshift shelter went up overnight to welcome dogs like Jonik, Sonya and Nick and many others who were nearly exterminated during the games.
An international community formed to support the rescue and people from all over the world wanted to adopt the Sochi Olympic Survivors.
In the spring of 2014, the first dog, Stetson (née Tony), flew out to Houston, Texas where his new human was anxiously waiting.
The Houston Chronicle was also there to document his arrival!
2015
Our rescue work kicked into high gear. We began rehabilitating puppies and senior dogs and finding homes for former strays. To prevent animals from ending up on the street we partnered with a local radio station and vet clinic to start a low-cost spay-neuter program.
Back in Sochi, a local construction company volunteered to build a more permanent shelter with rows of kennels and a field in the middle so everyone could get time to run and play in the grass.
2016
In 2016, a yearly tradition to re-unite adopted dogs with their shelter friends began. The first reunion was held in our co-founder’s small backyard. Today, 10 years later, it's an all day bash with more than 100 attendees traveling from over the East Coast and rescued Sochi dogs gathering from five different countries.
2017
Some of our hardest rescues are also our smallest. 2017 was a big year for puppies. The number of puppies we found was unbelievable! Many of them needed to be bottle fed around the clock and they all need extra special care because they can be susceptible to disease.
All the puppies that come through our care are dewormed, vaccinated, spayed, and socialized so they can grow up to be great family dogs.
2018
In 2018, the FIFA World Cup came to Sochi. Our team was ready to help street dogs once again. With time to prepare, we launched a big spay/neuter campaign to help get dogs and puppies off the streets. Spaying street dogs is not easy, especially when some of the dogs are terrified of humans. We set up traps and worked with dog catchers to try to pick up as many dogs as we could. Every dog spayed prevents hundreds of puppies from suffering on the street.
The World Cup brought thousands of tourists to Sochi. A puppy, later named Casper, turned one of them into a dog rescuer! Darren, an Australian, was visiting Sochi for the matches, when he spotted a tripod puppy alone on the street. A quick Google search led Darren to alert our team in NJ, who activated the rescue team in Sochi who in the middle of the night brought Casper to the shelter.
Darren was able to visit him at the shelter but due to Australia's strict animal import rules could not bring him home, so several months later, Casper found his forever people in the US, and all of his rescue humans still keep in touch!
As we’ve learned over the years, it takes a village, a lot of hard work, and some magic to rescue dogs!
2019
Given our beginning we knew nothing was impossible, so we took on the hardest rescue cases - from a husky puppy, Kohanna, who had a broken neck to Lulu, a homeless dog who fell into a canal and became paralyzed in her hind legs.
With support from our community and Greater Goods, we were able to give them and many other dogs life-saving surgeries.
A year later Kohanna found her forever family in NJ. And Lulu is living her life to the fullest at a special sanctuary for disabled dogs.
2020
The pandemic took a particularly big toll on Sochi Dogs. Flights ground to a halt in 2020 which meant that we could no longer adopt in the US. At the same time, tourists who fed community dogs around Sochi also disappeared.
The shelter filled up quickly and we couldn’t take in any new residents. With many dogs in need of help, we focused our efforts on feeding, vaccinating, and spaying community dogs.
2021
As the pandemic dragged on, the situation in Sochi became more desperate. The number of abandoned and stray dogs was increasing, and the shelter was beyond capacity. We started partnering with LAPA, a UK organization doing similar work. LAPA’s rescue bus allowed us work together to find homes for dogs in the UK.
Polly-Pocket and Loki were among the first UK rescues. Polly-Pocket was found injured on the side of a road. She weighed just 7 lb and had no chance of surviving on her own.
Loki, a two-month-old puppy, was found lost and disoriented on the street. He was likely born to an unsprayed pet dog and then abandoned. Loki grew up in the shelter and when he was old enough he also found his forever human in the UK.
2021 dealt another setback to Sochi Dogs and international animal rescues in the US. The CDC put in place a temporary ruling practically banning any dogs from 113 countries from entering the US. We worked together with the Animal Welfare Alliance, Humane Society International, and a coalition of other rescues to gather thousands of signatures and send messages to Congress speaking out against the ruling. Today the import restrictions have been slightly loosened but they still make it extremely difficult for anyone, including US service members, to bring dogs into the US. Three years after the temporary restrictions were set in place, we are still waiting on the final ruling.
Not letting the restrictions stop us from helping dogs in need we started launching rescue partnerships around the world. The more we can work together the more dogs we can help.
First, in 2021 we launched a partnership with The Beagle Rescue Network in South Korea. The organization had closed down a terrible hoarding situation with more than 1,600 dogs and needed to find homes for them. With the help of fosters and flight volunteers, together we’ve been able to rehabilitate and find homes for many of the dogs from that rescue and others that The Beagle Rescue Network has assisted with.
Later in 2021, we launched a similar partnership in Latvia, where there is a big problem with dogs in rural areas. A Riga-based rescue reached out to us to help find homes for some of their larger dogs like Terra.
Terra spent her entire life chained outside until she was rescued. Now Terra lives in Maine and rides a boat to work everyday with her forever humans.
2022
The Russian invasion of Ukraine forced us to change gears completely. At the start of the war, we jumped into action to evacuate small shelters and rescuers out of Ukraine. This meant finding drivers, and crates, navigating border crossing, and locating partners in Europe to help house the animals.
2023
As the war continues, the homeless dog crisis has escalated. Sochi Dogs is supporting rescuers on the ground with food, veterinary supplies and shelter for their animals. We've launched a partnership with the Dnipro Shelter, a 12-year-old rescue organization in Eastern Ukraine that rescues homeless animals and runs a hotline for anyone who has located an animal in need.
Sochi Dogs has been able to provide a monthly supply of food, fund vaccinations, and medical expenses, and get additional housing for incoming dogs and cats. Together we are running a spay/neuter effort in Dnipro to prevent dogs and cats from suffering on the street.
