Scientists in Moscow say that ever since the 1990s, when the Soviet Union collapsed and Moscow fell into the hands of new class of Russian capitalists, stray dogs are getting smarter. Strays from suburbia have learned to commute by Moscow metro every morning to get to the regions of Moscow center where the fat cats live. Once they’re downtown, they put their newly acquired and previously unseen dog skills to work.

A dog’s got to eat, so first, the “hunt for shawarma”, the eastern fast food popular among Muscovites.

On a busy Moscow street, a man buys a hot shawarma from a kiosk, and walks on. Just as he prepares to take a bite, some dog sneaks up on him and barks loudly. The man jumps, lunch falls from his hands and into the jaws of the dog, who runs off to his next victim. The canines have developed an uncanny sense for who’ll jump, and seem to have close to a 100% success rate.

The strays understand the real value of the downtown realty. The previous Communist owners moved Moscow’s industrial areas from its centre to the outskirts. Those places sheltered homeless dogs, so the dogs had to relocate too. Then they had to learn how to use the Moscow subway—first to get downtown in the morning and then home in the evening, just like the rest of the working stiffs.

The commercial revolution also placed usual feeding places like trash bins out of direct reach, so the strays had to get develop creative ways to get food. Besides shawarma hunting, they use a range of psychologies: A teenage student finds a quiet bench to eat her hot dog. Before she can take a bite, a big cute looking dog appears from the bushes and puts his head on her knees. How could she resist sharing her hot dog with her new best friend?

When they head home on the subway at the end of the day, the Moscow strays never seem to miss their stop, relying on a finely tuned sense of time to reach their destination. They also cross the road on the green traffic light, reacting to the picture they see on the traffic light rather than color. And the strays know to choose either the first or last metro car, both of which are usually less crowded.

And the Moscow strays also keep a sense of play on the subway. Just for fun, the strays often wait until the last moment before the doors close to jump into the car, risking their tails as they settle in for the ride home.

Spacelocker: The Happiest Space On Earth

Allan Ross
The Spacelocker Fleet