Dogs saved from Sochi streets arrive in Washington for adoption - Alix Kast

Ten dogs were brought from Sochi (The location of the recent 2014 Winter Olympics) to the United States on Thursday. This was because of a major international reaction to the poor conditions these dogs lived in, and especially the way that they were  being dealt with. It was said that many of the stray dogs in Sochi were being rounded up and poisoned. Apparently, this was a typical way that the excessive number of dogs were dealt with. A brand new shelter was opened by the government, seemingly just to combat the poor media coverage. American skier Gus Kenworthy made an announcement that he was going to bring four stray dogs back to the U.S. This was what inspired the Humane Society International to bring these 10 dogs back to the United States. The dogs had to go through about 2 days of travel because of a long layover in Moscow. For now, they are being kept in the Washington Animal Rescue League facilities. They will get a medical evaluation, and hopefully be up for adoption in a few days. Organizers expect people to be very interested in adopting these dogs. 

This is certainly a sweet story, and I think that these dogs will all be able to find good homes. However, I don't consider it much of a success when I think about how many dogs are still strays in Russia, along with those in the U.S. What they really need to do is to help Russia develop a strategy to help those dogs, such as neutering/spaying them so that more dogs won't be born as strays. But it's still nice to see that people do care about these dogs, and that they're trying to make an effort to help them. I got the impression that there was a bit of tension between the Russian government and the people who wanted to help these animals. The fact that a new shelter was opened right when this terrible information came out is very suspicious. I think it was opened just to create some good publicity to counter all of the bad media coverage. 

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/27/us/d-c-sochi-dogs-arrive/index.html?hpt=us_c2

Another article about the dogs being poisoned: http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/05/world/europe/russia-sochi-stray-dogs/