Animal Lovers Web Forum

It has been 35 years since the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear plant. The pet dogs that were abandoned are now long gone and so are their immediate descendants.  The dogs that live there now are generations away from them. They have never been pets and they see few humans. Mostly they see the guards who control the checkpoints in and out of the exclusion zone. They have built up relationships with the guards and the guards with them. The guards help feed them and care for them, but they are not actually pets. The dogs are not feral, but they are not domesticated. It is an interesting situation with dogs and humans interacting under unusual circumstances. 

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210...doned-dogs

This situation definitely deserves more study. I believe some of the dogs in the area have been rescued and homes have found for them. Those are dogs that are essentially domesticated. The dogs that are interacting with the guards  have a different attitude.  They appreciate the help, but they are not looking for rescue. 
They are Chernobyl dogs and they will remain Chernobyl dogs. They still seem to want to interact with humans. This is interesting and I wonder what the next few years will show us. Many of these dogs will be gone and there will be a new generation. We will just have to wait and see what happens.

This is fascinating Catherine, and thank you for posting it! I would be very interested to hear more about these dogs.
There is obviously something in these dogs...in their "racial memory" perhaps, that recalls a positive experience with humans, even though they individually have no personal memory of that.

No,  they won't want to be "rescued". They want to be left in peace in their own society, with their own ways.

It is kind of the guards to reach out to them, to build some kind of friendly relationship.

The whole Chernobyl situation has been very interesting. We know that nature has returned and the land gone wild again. Some day all trace of humans will be gone. Packs of wolves are a sign of that rewilding.

The dogs however are not part of that natural return to the wild. They are domestic dogs that seem to have returned to the time when dogs and humans interacted, but the dogs were not our dependents.  The guards are like the first humans that interacted with dogs. The dogs connect with them on their own terms even though the guards are helping them.  It will be interesting to see what comes out of Chernobyl as more time goes by.