Zorik was never the tail-wagging or hand-licking type, but that did not stop the free-spirited vagabond dog from winning many hearts.
When the black-and-white mutt, long a presence in a Tallinn neighborhood, was taken from the Estonian capital to the countryside earlier this year to live out his days in the safe and restful surroundings of a family’s backyard, he was missed so much that the residents immortalized him with a statue.
“People donated for the monument. They wanted it and they still follow his fate even though he is already old and frail,” said Heiki Valner, an animal rescue volunteer who thought up the idea of the statue of Zorik and organized the fundraising.
Photo: AP
Donations were collected and a local artist was commissioned to create the likeness of Zorik, with his upright ears and shaggy hair around his muzzle, along with a cat nestled against him.
The statue, standing in front of a shopping center, is meant as a tribute to Zorik and his animal companions, and to all strays.
Zorik once had a dog companion who was killed in a car accident. He then took up with stray cats and was seen with them often, even while sleeping.
Residents say that Zorik first appeared as a pup about 12 years ago in a coal storage area in a nearby port, and had been a fixture ever since in Kalamaja, a working-class district that is transforming into a magnet for hipsters.
In a society where the divide between ethnic Estonians and ethnic Russians is acutely felt, Zorik managed to bridge the divide, winning over Russian-speaking old women who fed him, as well as Estonian hipsters, including a group now opening a cafe named “Zorik.”
“Zorik was a dog who was able to disappear, he was a dog whom everyone in Kalamaja knew, he touched everyone — young and old, Estonians and Russians,” Valner said. “He was a point of social integration.”
He was so well-liked that residents would sometimes feed him the best cuts of beef — but nobody could ever catch and domesticate him.
“When people tried to regulate or restrict him, he just escaped,” Valner said. “He was just a free spirit.”
Viktoria Ger, who has given Zorik a new home, in an enclosure with a doghouse behind her own family home, describes him as a “peculiar dog.”
“He doesn’t want to be close to people, so he doesn’t like to be petted,” she said.
Nearby Zorik sat and shivered as a light dusting of snow covered the ground and pine trees dotting the yard.
“Probably he has been hurt by people during his life, so he doesn’t trust people,” she said.
Valner said Zorik eventually had to be removed from the city for his own safety.
“In the end he was so senile that he would just fall asleep on the railway or tram tracks or just here on the road, so that cars had to drive around him,” Valner said, pointing to the area in Kalamaja that was long home to the dog. “We received several calls a day when he was on the road, so finally we had to get him away from the streets in his own interest.”
Initially he tried to escape and return to his old roaming territory, but now his frailty has finally won out over his free spirit.
As is to be expected, there were also those over the years who did not want the dog around.
“This was a contest of good and evil,” Valner said. “There were those who demanded he be captured and eliminated and others who protected and fed him. This time, kindness won.”
People with missing teeth might be able to grow new ones, said Japanese dentists, who are testing a pioneering drug they hope will offer an alternative to dentures and implants. Unlike reptiles and fish, which usually replace their fangs on a regular basis, it is widely accepted that humans and most other mammals only grow two sets of teeth. However, hidden underneath our gums are the dormant buds of a third generation, said Katsu Takahashi, head of oral surgery at the Medical Research Institute Kitano Hospital in Osaka, Japan. His team launched clinical trials at Kyoto University Hospital in October, administering an experimental
‘GOOD POLITICS’: He is a ‘pragmatic radical’ and has moderated his rhetoric since the height of his radicalism in 2014, a lecturer in contemporary Islam said Abu Mohammed al-Jolani is the leader of the Islamist alliance that spearheaded an offensive that rebels say brought down Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and ended five decades of Baath Party rule in Syria. Al-Jolani heads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in Syria’s branch of al-Qaeda. He is a former extremist who adopted a more moderate posture in order to achieve his goals. Yesterday, as the rebels entered Damascus, he ordered all military forces in the capital not to approach public institutions. Last week, he said the objective of his offensive, which saw city after city fall from government control, was to
IVY LEAGUE GRADUATE: Suspect Luigi Nicholas Mangione, whose grandfather was a self-made real-estate developer and philanthropist, had a life of privilege The man charged with murder in the killing of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare made it clear he was not going to make things easy on authorities, shouting unintelligibly and writhing in the grip of sheriff’s deputies as he was led into court and then objecting to being brought to New York to face trial. The displays of resistance on Tuesday were not expected to significantly delay legal proceedings for Luigi Nicholas Mangione, who was charged in last week’s Manhattan killing of Brian Thompson, the leader of the US’ largest medical insurance company. Little new information has come out about motivation,
‘MONSTROUS CRIME’: The killings were overseen by a powerful gang leader who was convinced his son’s illness was caused by voodoo practitioners, a civil organization said Nearly 200 people in Haiti were killed in brutal weekend violence reportedly orchestrated against voodoo practitioners, with the government on Monday condemning a massacre of “unbearable cruelty.” The killings in the capital, Port-au-Prince, were overseen by a powerful gang leader convinced that his son’s illness was caused by followers of the religion, the civil organization the Committee for Peace and Development (CPD) said. It was the latest act of extreme violence by powerful gangs that control most of the capital in the impoverished Caribbean country mired for decades in political instability, natural disasters and other woes. “He decided to cruelly punish all
RSS