Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

CHORNOBYL, UKRAINE - AUGUST 18: Stray dogs hang out near an abandoned, partially-completed cooling tower at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on August 18, 2017 near Chornobyl, Ukraine. An estimated 900 stray dogs live in the exclusion zone, many of them likely the descendants of dogs left behind following the mass evacuation of residents in the aftermath of the 1986 nuclear disaster at Chernobyl. Volunteers, including veterinarians and radiation experts from around the world, are participating in an initiative called The Dogs of Chernobyl, launched by the non-profit Clean Futures Fund. Participants capture the dogs, study their radiation exposure, vaccinate them against parasites and diseases including rabies, tag the dogs and release them again into the exclusion zone. Some dogs are also being outfitted with special collars equipped with radiation sensors and GPS receivers in order to map radiation levels across the zone. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

For some dog lovers things got too bleak on Monday’s episode of the show, which showed workers known as “liquidators” shooting dogs left behind at the exclusion site surrounding the power plant to prevent the spread of radiation contamination.

“I know that was hard. Just so there’s no confusion— the story of the liquidators is real. It happened. And we actually toned it down from the full story,” Mazin tweeted on May 27. “War leaves all kinds of scars. These were the things men were ordered to do.”

According tothe organization, “Some dogs chased after their owners to follow them onto evacuation buses, but soldiers pushed them away. Dog owners also reportedly left notes on their doors, begging the government to spare their pets’ lives, but that didn’t stop officials from trying to kill as many of the remaining animals as possible. In the years since, however, the descendants of these dogs have bred and multiplied.”

“Clean Futures Fund worked diligently to test radiation levels of these animals. They found that the majority of animals don’t pose a radiation threat to humans. Thanks to these very low radiation levels, Clean Futures Fund and SPCA International worked with the Ukrainian government to pave the way for 15 puppies to be removed from the Nuclear Exclusion Zone,”SPCA Internationalshared on May 29.

source: people.com