A pack of stray dogs with bright green fur has been spotted in Russia in the latest in a series of sightings of colourful canines.
Pictures of dogs with blue and pink fur have gone viral on social media in recent weeks, but this appears to be the first time green coated dogs have been seen.
They were found in a derelict industrial unit in the city of Podolsk, about 25 miles south of Moscow, Vice reported.
Officials said that the dogs likely got their unusual colour from rolling around in green paint left at an abandoned warehouse in the area.
The animals were otherwise healthy, the Russian Society for the Protection of Animals told state news agency RIA Novosti.
Sergei Voskrensky, the regional food and agriculture minister, said that the dogs were ‘very friendly’.
The green dogs appeared just days after pink ones were spotted in a former chemical weapons-making city some 459kilometres (285miles) from Podolsk.
Dzerzhinsk, one of the world’s most polluted locations – was also where seven blue strays were spotted earlier this month.
The pink and blue dogs were found in different areas of the city, where almost 300,000 tons of chemical waste was dumped during and after the Cold War.
The pink ones were spotted close to the Kristall defence plant – which manufactures explosives and ammunition, reports said.
A total of seven strays were caught with blue skin and hair colouring near the dilapidated Dzerzhinskoye Orgsteklo plant, once a large chemical production facility making hydrocyanic acid and plexiglass.
Initially the plant’s bankruptcy manager Andrey Mislivets suggested they had been poisoned with copper sulphate.
Dmitry Karelkin, head physician of Zoozashchita veterinary hospital, said: ‘It is some kind of chemical.’
While it appeared ‘non-toxic’ with ‘no signs of irritating chemical burns’, he admitted some of the seven dogs remained ‘under stress’.
He also revealed that the dogs’ excrement had come out blue.
Officials have since played down the outbreak as being caused by ‘dye’.
Despite this, the ‘blue dogs’ remain under close monitoring, according to reports.
‘The (blue) dogs are supervised,’ said Karelkin.
‘They will stay with us for 20 days. Their skin and hair is all covered with the dye.’
Analysis of the dogs’ blood and excrement was undertaken at the Lobachevsky Research Institute of Chemistry at Nizhny Novgorod State University and the Committee for State Veterinary Surveillance, it was announced.
This found that the shocking colouring was not dangerous to their health.
It was unclear if several reported ‘pink’ dogs had been caught to be tested in the same way, or what the cause of their discolouration might be.
In 2007, the Blacksmith Institute – now Pure Earth – reported that Dzerzhinsk was one of the worst polluted cities of the world, after decades of chemical pollution, some linked to its previous role as a weapons-producing hub.
Officials in the city claimed the allegations were exaggerated.
source dailymail