They are glowing with affection

September 23, 2017 12:27 PM

Please Do Not Pet the Radioactive Puppies of Chernobyl.
posted by Johnny Wallflower (44 comments total)

i will hug those radioactive puppies and no one can stop me
posted by poffin boffin at 12:28 PM on September 23, 2017 [39 favorites]

You only live once.

Do you want to spend that life ruled by fear rather than doing what you love?
posted by asteria at 12:31 PM on September 23, 2017 [7 favorites]

These radioactive puppies have proliferated in the wilds of nuclear fallout, and are profiled in the above documentary "Puppies of Chernobyl" by filmmaker Drew Scanlon, who happens to also be the guyin the Blinking White Guy meme.

Did they get him to blink by telling him he couldn't pet the puppies?
posted by asteria at 12:33 PM on September 23, 2017 [3 favorites]

These little guys look exactly like other puppies I have seen in places where dogs are looked after by nobody in particular. I think they revert to type eventually.

As with those puppies, I could not be dissuaded from kisses or pets by a litany of horrible diseases I was liable to catch.
posted by Countess Elena at 12:34 PM on September 23, 2017 [3 favorites]

So this is the first post to use the tag "dang"...

I'm just surprised, is all I'm saying.
posted by 1f2frfbf at 12:37 PM on September 23, 2017 [9 favorites]

I'm here for a good time, not for a long time. I will pet those lil fluffers.
posted by Grandysaur at 12:41 PM on September 23, 2017 [8 favorites]

But but but they WANT to be petted....
posted by The otter lady at 12:49 PM on September 23, 2017 [2 favorites]

People must be feeding them; they look much better fed than most street dogs I've seen.
posted by Dip Flash at 12:56 PM on September 23, 2017 [3 favorites]

Couldn't you just scan one with a geiger counter, and then pet it?
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 1:02 PM on September 23, 2017 [9 favorites]

Just wait until you see the gigantic radioactive catfish in the pond next to the reactor.

You are more likely to get fleas from these dogs than any significant radiation exposure. You can encounter many of them in Chernobyl, or next to the reactor (especially near the canteen...) - but almost none in Pripyat or in the Red Forest where the radiation level is still pretty high.

They are cute and playful, and you can definitely pet them.
posted by kmt at 1:43 PM on September 23, 2017 [5 favorites]

Awwwwwwwww.
posted by jacquilynne at 1:50 PM on September 23, 2017

I've always been a law-abiding, lawful-good kind of person. The vehemence with which I just hissed "I'LL DO WHAT I WANT" kind of shocked me.
posted by a hat out of hell at 1:55 PM on September 23, 2017 [30 favorites]

Someone posted this on Facebook with the status "You're not my real dad!" which is pretty much how I feel about being told not to pet these very good puppies.
posted by lunasol at 2:05 PM on September 23, 2017 [6 favorites]

These little guys look exactly like other puppies I have seen in places where dogs are looked after by nobody in particular. I think they revert to type eventually.

They look a lot like my dog and his sister as puppies - they were Mexican village dogs, rescued as puppies. This is them at about 4-5 weeks.
posted by lunasol at 2:07 PM on September 23, 2017 [6 favorites]

Do they glow in the dark? That would make them easier to find and pat, even late at night
posted by greenhornet at 2:49 PM on September 23, 2017 [9 favorites]

That's right! That's right? Who's a good little harbinger of lingering, agonizing death?

YOU ARE!
posted by Samizdata at 2:54 PM on September 23, 2017 [13 favorites]

I recently read Svetlana Alexievich's book Voices from Chernobyl . It's a powerful and deeply upsetting oral history, and I wish journalists would read it before burbling about how great it is that animals in the exclusion zone get to live free of the "ecological damage that normally comes with human inhabitants."*

But anyway, one thing that struck me was how, again and again, the people interviewed mentioned their grief at having to leave their pets behind. Bear in mind these were people who had lost family members, been uprooted from the villages where their families had lived for generations, and often become very ill themselves - a number of them were dying when they spoke to Alexievich. They still remembered leaving the family cat or dog. The people sent in later to clean the site up (another horror story) also mention being haunted by the strays. One man who'd been assigned to shoot dogs was still traumatised by his experience.

By the way, it's somewhat misleading to say that Chernobyl is "almost entirely devoid of people."

* Except for the massive ecological damage that led to it being an exclusion zone in the first place, I guess? Oh, whatever.
posted by Perodicticus potto at 2:56 PM on September 23, 2017 [10 favorites]

I'd pet the puppies. I'm weak that way - because puppies
posted by drewbage1847 at 2:59 PM on September 23, 2017

I give this post 12 out of 10. The puppies are eminently pettable and it gives me a chance to reference Fred Small's song Hot Frogs on the Loose.
posted by ALeaflikeStructure at 3:11 PM on September 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

None of them have grown to enormous size?

I've been lied to again!
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:12 PM on September 23, 2017 [3 favorites]

It's linked in the article, but I did want to pull out the fundraiser to support TNR and vaccination efforts for this population.
posted by praemunire at 3:14 PM on September 23, 2017 [5 favorites]

Just wait until you see the gigantic radioactive catfish in the pond next to the reactor.

You should see them, 'cause they're neat-o, but they're just regular wels catfish, endemic to all of Europe, which are naturally ginormous.
posted by Sys Rq at 4:09 PM on September 23, 2017 [3 favorites]

This is them at about 4-5 weeks.

scream
posted by poffin boffin at 5:13 PM on September 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

It's linked in the article, but I did want to pull out the fundraiser to support TNR and vaccination efforts for this population.

The people in those pictures get to pet the puppies.
posted by dilettante at 6:20 PM on September 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

Um yep I will.
posted by allthinky at 6:28 PM on September 23, 2017 [2 favorites]

What? I have a hard time believing a puppy could be radioactive enough (or have enough contamination on them externally) to be a human health hazard. Like, period, but also without killing the puppy. Or that the puppy would be any worse than the ground, etc. around you. I notice they don't have any measurements to mention, just ooh, scary radioactive! It's my media pet peeve. You have radioactive stuff in your kitchen, doesn't mean it's dangerous.

Pet the puppy. Survey yourself and decon as necessary when you leave the area, just as you were going to do anyway.
posted by ctmf at 6:32 PM on September 23, 2017 [4 favorites]

They're good dogs, Bront.
posted by fluffy battle kitten at 7:28 PM on September 23, 2017 [3 favorites]

If the risk is transfer of radioactive dust it would seem like disposable gloves would solve the problem.
posted by Mitheral at 7:28 PM on September 23, 2017 [4 favorites]

There's a Marvel Superhero Origin Story in here somewhere...
posted by oneswellfoop at 7:46 PM on September 23, 2017 [4 favorites]

Who's a cute little Stalker? Are you? Are you a cute little Stalker?

Yes you are!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 8:18 PM on September 23, 2017 [3 favorites]

Yeah sorry I'm going to pet the puppies. I can't stop myself. Maybe they have some kind of mutant power that saps my will or something. I'll just have to hope I don't contract radioactive brucellosis.
posted by um at 8:23 PM on September 23, 2017 [1 favorite]

I'm going to sell lead puppy-petting gloves at the entrance and become a zillionaire
posted by rmless at 9:16 PM on September 23, 2017 [2 favorites]

Unpetted Chernobyl puppies will cry pitifully in my nightmares.
posted by bryon at 9:48 PM on September 23, 2017 [2 favorites]

But what happens when the puppy licks you right in the damn mouth like puppies love to do?
posted by bolda at 10:18 PM on September 23, 2017 [5 favorites]

Disappointed that they didn't have a picture of puppies in a room, then a picture with the lights out so that you could see their little skeletons glowing through their bodies because of the strontium-90.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:54 PM on September 23, 2017 [5 favorites]

Just wait until you see the gigantic radioactive catfish in the pond next to the reactor.

Ooooo, can you pet it, too?
posted by tully_monster at 11:13 PM on September 23, 2017 [3 favorites]

They're good hot dogs, Bront.
posted by Joe in Australia at 11:24 PM on September 23, 2017 [8 favorites]

How can you NOT pet these puppies??! I am sorry, this is a divide by zero type of instruction. Commencing petting puppies now.
posted by Ender's Friend at 7:35 AM on September 24, 2017

But what happens when the puppy licks you right in the damn mouth like puppies love to do?

Death
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 9:00 AM on September 24, 2017 [3 favorites]

But anyway, one thing that struck me was how, again and again, the people interviewed mentioned their grief at having to leave their pets behind.

I gave myself a totally useless* moment of terror and grief watching pet rescue videos from Houston and thinking to myself about what I would do if I had to evacuate but couldn't bring my dog. Honestly, I don't know if I could do it.

* Useless because I live in a place where the likely natural disaster is completely different and there's not going to be any time to make hard decisions like that.
posted by lunasol at 10:36 AM on September 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

> None of them have grown to enormous size?
I've been lied to again!

ARFZILLA!
posted by davelog at 11:26 AM on September 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

Please Do Not Pet the Radioactive Puppies of Chernobyl

Don't tell me what to do.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:10 PM on September 24, 2017 [1 favorite]

petting these puppies is the one and only way we can pay back the tiniest portion of humanity's massive blood debt to the animals, puppies neither first nor last among them, all of them innocent, who have been killed or injured or traumatized through human acts of war. we should all be eager to do that. the only reason I don't think every major world leader should be sentenced to a (shortened) lifetime petting and feeding these puppies, as penance for their uses of power, is because not all of them are entirely trustworthy around small animals.

I mean supposing these puppies will kill a person, we owe it to them to let them. if they want to be petted, they should be petted.

edit: like so
posted by queenofbithynia at 8:54 PM on September 24, 2017 [3 favorites]

They're good dogs, Brontium-90.
posted by Quindar Beep at 10:30 AM on September 25, 2017 [3 favorites]