Dog At Olympic Cross Country Ski Track A Stark Reminder Of City's Extermination Plan

This Stray Dog Is A Stark Reminder Of Sochi's Extermination Plan

A stray dog recently found its way onto a cross country ski run in Sochi.

As some point out, video footage of the barking dog mingling with Olympians serves a stark reminder of the hundreds of other strays facing a death sentence.

Authorities have said they want the streets clear of stray dogs, which they deem an impediment to the games, before the opening ceremony on Friday, Feb. 7.

A pest control company recently told the Associated Press it was contracted by city authorities to exterminate the dogs throughout Olympic Village.

"Let's call things by their real name. These dogs are biological trash," Alexei Sorokin, owner of the company hired to cull the dogs, told ABC News last week.

Local human rights activists, on the other hand, are scrambling to save as many strays as possible by harboring them in nearby shelters.

“We were told, ‘Either you take all the dogs from the Olympic Village or we will shoot them,’" Olga Melnikova, who is coordinating rescues for the charity called Volnoe Delo, told the New York Times. “On Monday we were told we have until Thursday.”

Another Sochi animal rights advocate told the Times she estimates about 300 dogs per month have been killed since October.

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