On any given morning in Tbilisi, capital of the South Caucasian country of Georgia, a visitor will find dogs dozing on park benches, sprawled across the steps of medieval churches, and on street corners. These are the “yard dogs” fed by locals and identifiable by yellow municipal tags clipped to their ears. They are part of the community.

But since March, the dogs have been vanishing.

“In many neighborhoods, they are part of daily life, protected by residents,” said Mariam Tsertsvadze, animal rights activist and co-founder of the Tbilisi-based Animal Project. “When they started disappearing, people searched for them, called institutions, and demanded answers. But no answers were given.”

Officials say the removals are part of a nationwide initiative updated in February to manage the country’s growing population of strays. Vans belonging to the National Food Agency have been sweeping through cities grabbing animals. The program calls for the capture, neutering, vaccination, and treatment of about 36,000 dogs, which are transported to four regional shelters. The government has allocated 4.63 million lari (about $1.7 million) to municipalities hosting the facilities. The agency said it collected just 502 dogs from three regions between March 10 and April 2 and returned 435 of them to the streets after vaccination, sterilization, and registration.

Authorities claim treated animals are returned to their original areas. The decree, however, prohibits releasing dogs near schools, hospitals, markets, restaurants, hotels, or playgrounds—a restriction activists say effectively condemns many animals to slow death in remote areas where food is scarce.

Stray dogs have an odd habit of wandering into politics. In 2020, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reportedly ordered pet dogs confiscated, denouncing them as a “tainted trend of bourgeois ideology.” In Turkmenistan, former President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov became known for his hostility toward stray animals, with reports describing dogs or cats crossing his motorcade’s path being ordered destroyed on the spot. In Turkey, a government proposal to round up millions of dogs sparked fears of mass euthanasia.

In Georgia, similarly, the dogs feel like an uncomfortable metaphor. In the country’s bureaucracy, critics argue, jobs go to those who are loyal, social programs keep supporters employed in government vehicles, and the little money they receive locks their backing during election times. The institutions answer upward, to the ruling party, maintains Bachana Shengelia, a Tbilisi notary and government critic, not to the public.

“The authorities have taken no steps toward an investigation or transparency,” he noted. “A decent government would have opened an inquiry immediately. Instead, people searching for the dogs were thrown out of the shelters, deepening the confusion.”

The controversy escalated after a video circulated online showing nighttime smoke rising from a crematorium at a municipal shelter in Gori, a city in eastern Georgia. Activists said the smell of burned fur and meat suggested dogs might have been killed and burned at the facility. Shelter authorities deny the accusation, saying the crematorium is used only to dispose of veterinary waste or animals that have already died, not to euthanize healthy dogs. But the rumors have taken on a life of their own in an increasingly authoritarian political climate where public trust in government institutions has evaporated.

“The shelter’s director claimed that they were burning dead animals collected over several days,” local animal rights activist Anastasia Tavkhelidze told Foreign Policy. “If so, the time and volume of operation raise serious concerns about sanitation, disease control, and public health. If this was actually true, the procedure would be to put the facility under very strict quarantine measures,” she added.

The government denies the accusations. The speaker of parliament, Shalva Papuashvili, dismissed the public outcry. “What we have seen these days is that a bigger problem than stray dogs is the emotionally damaged radical opposition,” he said, adding that the government had provided detailed explanations and that activists “need a different kind of help.”

International standards for managing stray populations call for capture, registration, sterilization, vaccination, and release. Georgian animal activists and organizations say authorities fail on several of these steps, including keeping a registry and returning dogs to their habitats. In many cases, the figures are obviously wrong. In one case in the resort town of Bakuriani, 12 dogs were taken to a shelter and 18 were reported as returned.

“I am still searching for 15 dogs from Borjomi and Bakuriani that were taken during the first phase of the program,” Tavkhelidze noted. “And I am not alone in this. Many people across the country are looking for their [local] dogs, holding onto the hope that they will be found.”

In Zugdidi, a city in western Georgia, activists documented agency vehicles capturing dozens of dogs and transporting them to a shelter in Kutaisi, more than 100 kilometers away. Among them were dogs wearing ear tags—proof they had already been sterilized under previous programs. The agency later said it had returned 28 of the 57 dogs it collected. But the activists dispute the figures. The explanations coming from the government institutions were vague and contradictory.

With no clarity coming from above, activists including Tavkhelidze went to Tbilisi’s municipal shelter to locate the missing animals themselves. What they found was not far from author Mario Vargas Llosa’s pound: animals crammed into metal containers, some sleeping on top of their own manure and others barely able to stand. The sight and sound galvanized people to take to the streets the following day in front of the State Chancellery.

“People are worried about the animals, angry at the lack of accountability, desperate for answers,” Tavkhelidze said. “Instead of addressing these failures, blame is being placed on animal rescuers, activists, ordinary citizens,” she said.

A battered civil society is trying its best to protect the animals. More than 25,000 people and over 40 organizations signed a joint statement demanding the government implement a full sterilization and castration program instead of exterminating stray animals. Activists have set up a public platform where citizens can report dogs taken from their neighborhoods. Users can log the location, the number of animals collected, and upload photo or video evidence.

Strays are a genuine problem, and the number is unknown, though the frequently cited figure is half a million. The problem dates back to the chaotic 1990s and has remained a recurring public debate ever since. It’s a source of fear and annoyance for some residents, and of concern and compassion for others who argue for more humane care. In 2025, around 30,000 stray dogs were recorded on the streets of the capital by the Animal Monitoring Agency.

Packs of strays that were once concentrated in Tbilisi now roam small towns and rural roads, and cases of aggression and bites are common. A National Democratic Institute poll found 22 percent of respondents named stray dogs among the most pressing local problems, alongside the economy and jobs. The health risks are real: Georgia recorded 19 human rabies cases between 2024 and 2025, and tens of thousands of people receive post-exposure treatment for animal bites every year. The critics say the failure lies in how the government has handled the problem: Local authorities often have little real agency or competence and instead carry out political instructions from the center, while tenders and public jobs are awarded on the basis of loyalty rather than merit. The issue is also cultural. Sterilization is not common. Many owners do not neuter their pets, and breeding animals only to abandon them remains common.

But the issue landed in a country already at the end of its patience. Over the past year and a half, Georgians have taken to the streets continuously to protest the ruling Georgian Dream party’s turn away from the West, to which authorities in Tbilisi have responded with a heavy crackdown, beating and torturing dozens; imposing limitations on freedom of assembly, speech, and expression; arresting hundreds of activists and almost all political opposition leaders; and amending legislation to allow for further crackdown.

The government’s 2024 foreign influence law, modeled on Russian legislation and enacted over mass protests, has further complicated the work of nongovernmental organizations, including those involved in animal welfare. Animal care organizations such as Mayhew and smaller volunteer shelters may face registration requirements as foreign agents. Volunteers filled in the gap and coordinate on Facebook, pooling small donations for food and veterinary treatment.

“They tortured people, too, during the 2024 protests, and no one has investigated a single case,” Shengelia said. “When a government is suspected of torturing humans and nothing happens, how can anyone be surprised that low-level officials abuse and even burn dogs?”