Moscow Spending $64M To Spay Stray Dogs

MOSCOW — Moscow is spending $64 million to castrate as many as 50,000 stray dogs because of a rising number of attacks on people, including one fatality this month. A Soviet-era policy of shooting homeless animals was abandoned in 2002. Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, under pressure from animal-rights groups to uphold the ban, has now decided on a two-year program to stop the dogs from breeding, the city's top animal official, Natalia Sokolova, said. Moscow's 10.5 million residents are more likely to be attacked by a dog than by a mugger, according to the mayor's office. More than 22,000 Muscovites were bitten last year, a rate of 60 a day. One-third of those were hospitalized with severe injuries.