“Dogs are heroes of Ukraine”: service dogs were awarded in Kyiv
Within the framework of the project “Dogs - Heroes of Ukraine”, a calendar is published, each month of which is dedicated to the Ukrainian service dog and its mentor. All money from calendar sales will go to armor vests for rescue dogs. Border guard Alina Panina and her four-legged assistant Roxy became October 2024.
The dog named Roxy is already the third in the dog breed of Alina Panina. The first two - Sonia and Jersey, together with the border guard, fell into Russian captivity after the defense of Azovstal. She divided her portion of food into three — herself and two of her four-legged friends.
The girl left the “Azovstal” together with the four-legged defenders, with which she fell into the hands of the invaders. Animals were never given to her.
“We were brought to Olenivka. The conditions were terrible, and the day of stay there seemed to be in a month. The greatest joy was to hear the barking of their dogs, which were kept somewhere near the colony. I will never forget the feeling when we were taken out of there and they barked all the time. There remained a part of my heart,” says the border guard with sadness.
Sonia and Jesse in the project of the calendar “Dogs - Heroes of Ukraine” became a symbol of all animals that were captured by the invaders, they were rewarded in absentia. And the new four-legged border guard Roxy is a real professional. In July of this year, at the Ustylug checkpoint on the border with Poland, Roxy “sniffed” tobacco products hidden in the car's fuel tank worth more than 30 thousand hryvnias.
And this is not the only service result of Alina and her dexterous partner Roxy.
State Border Guard Service of Ukraine
