One American skier is following in the footsteps of a Russian billionaire to help save those stray dogs that officials in Sochi were having “removed.” While the billionaire, Oleg Deripaska, has used funds to buy a shelter up in the mountains for the dogs, Gus Kenworthy is taking a more personal approach.
The Coloradan freestyle skier who took silver for the USA has decided to personally transport at least four puppies, and hopefully their mother, back to the states. He is currently making arrangements for the puppies to be sent and is having them vaccinated on Monday, reports For The Win.
Kenworthy says he plans on keeping one of the pups, and his brother plans to adopt another. As for the others, he said, “I’ve gotten a lot of messages from friends and family that would happily take them, including the mom.”
He tweeted out pictures with the puppies and made a collage on his Facebook. The Facebook caption reads, “Spent all afternoon playing with a gang of stray puppies here in Sochi! Looking into finding a way to bring them home with me but also don’t want to take them away from their mama because she was being super cute and protective over them. I bought them some food and I’ll go visit them again tomorrow :)”
puppy love is real to puppies. pic.twitter.com/krauCUPjOg
— Gus Kenworthy (@guskenworthy) February 11, 2014
Oh my glob, look who I just found! 🙂 #sochistrays pic.twitter.com/ne66y7jN6Z
— Gus Kenworthy (@guskenworthy) February 11, 2014
“I’ve been a dog lover my whole life,” he added, “and to find just the cutest family of strays ever, here at the Olympics, was just a fairytale way to have that go down.”