Volunteer rescuers from Moscow give a second life to cats and dogs

 

Volunteer rescuers appeared in the Russian capital in 2007. The "Spasreserv" unit brought together volunteers who had completed a professional rescue training program and received certification as professional firefighters. Since then, the volunteers have worked closely with the Ministry of Emergency Situations teams. While 18 years ago the team consisted of no more than 70 people, today the "Spasrezerv" team comprises 300 members, including many women.

And it so happened that it is on the shoulders of volunteers that a significant amount of work is being done to rescue the tailed ones who are stuck in the most unexpected places in Moscow and the Moscow region.

One of the most striking stories reported by Metro journalists occurred in January after the holidays. For several days, meowing sounds were heard coming from the wall of a Moscow apartment. "After responding to the call, we drilled a small hole in the wall and inserted a flexible camera into the ventilation duct. "Down below, on a small ledge between floors, a cat's eyes glowed. "Most likely, a kitten fell there from the roof and somehow managed to cling to the ledge," Stepan Kiselev told the shift supervisors of the SpasRezerv OPSO.

After an hour and a half of work, fluffy fidget finally found himself in the hands of rescuers. It turned out to be a very young kitty, no more than four months old. And there are a lot of such stories, because about 30-40% of Spasreserv's calls are related to animals.

One of the volunteers' most notable stories is the rescue of Athena the cat. The cat had spent several days confined to an apartment building, screaming incessantly. Residents first heard the meowing and called rescuers. It was late at night. The arriving crew examined everything they could at that late hour. They gained access to several apartments and the attic.

"There is a sound, but there is no cat. We got to know all the cats in the attic. I needed access to the apartment on the 6th floor and a re-inspection of the ventilation by employees of the management company. The next night, colleagues from the Ministry of Emergency Situations visited the meowing cat, examined it again, and realized that the animal was in the area of the 6th floor. But they couldn't find her, the cat was still screaming somewhere in the wall of the house for the fourth day," the rescuers of Spasrezerv say.

 

They managed to find a communication plan for the house in the archive and arrange with the management company for rescuers to be given access to the attic and basement, workers made inspection holes in the wall in one of the apartments, utilities checked five ventilation shafts and found a baby in one of them at a depth of 36 meters. But it was not possible to get her out of a remote mine. Inside the vent channel, there were ears made of fittings that cling to ropes. There is no access from the basement.

The tenants of the apartment on the ground floor and the chief engineer of the management company allowed drilling a hole in the wall. The house was built in 1966, blocky with reinforced concrete floors. In total, the rescuers had to walk 25 cm, 20 of which were solid concrete. And only from the third time, the rescuers were able to determine the point where they needed to drill a hole to get the poor guy. When they took out the cat, it turned out to be a girl. The volunteers immediately gave her water and took her to the veterinarians. Then the tricolor beauty found a new family with one of the rescuers of Spasreserv.

And the story of the "friendship" of an unknown cat and a dog named Ivy in Spasrezerv will definitely not be forgotten. In June, the volunteers came to a very unusual challenge. The dog got tangled in the engine of a parked car. It turned out that the dog chased the cat, which ducked under the car. He screwed in after it at full speed and got stuck, began to fidget in the space under the engine, as a result, the wool wrapped around the pins and tubes. I had to lift the car on jacks.

 

"We worked from several angles: from above, from below, and from a vantage point where we could at least see something." The crew's goal was to avoid damaging either the property or the dog. Rescuers had to carefully scroll the Ivi around all the tubes, turn it 180 degrees. The dog's face was wrapped in a bandage so that he would not inadvertently eat the rescuer," the SpasRezerv said.

Rescuers also had to calm the animal down. So, the three men "scrolled" the dog, passing it to each other. Two hours later, the rescue operation was successfully completed. Since then, at SpasReserve they joke since then that the only damage was to the people's taut nerves. The dog and the car were unharmed.

From January to August 2025, volunteer rescuers have 254 ponytails and more on their account. It's not just cats and dogs that get in their way. Even squirrels, hamsters, and bats were rescued from trouble at Spasrezerv. 

Photos and videos of "SpasReserv".