Whether all dogs go to heaven or not, a very good boy is immortalized for posterity here on earth with a statue in Estonia’s capital, Tallinn.
Called Zorik by locals, the black and white stray dog lived in the Kalamaja neighborhood for 12 years since he was a pup, before being taken in by Good Samaritans to spend his final days in shelter and comfort.
But the community has missed his presence so much that they launched a fund-raising campaign to erect a statue of Zorik, created by a local artist, in a nearby public space for everyone to honor and remember him. The sculpture shows the good-natured dog sitting upright with a cat under his chest. Faithful Zorik was said to have traveled through Tallinn with other stray animals, including cats.
“People have donated for the monument,” said Heiki Valner, an animal rescuer and leader of Zorik’s image campaign. “They are still following his fate, even though he is already old and frail,” she told AP.
The neighborhood is home to both Estonian and Russian speakers, who, according to Valner, found common ground in their appreciation of the dog, calling Zorik a “point of integration” for the burgeoning community. A newly opened café even received the dog’s name as a tribute.
Many residents in the past had tried to house the “free spirit,” as Valner called him, but he refused to stay there. As old age set in, concerns for his health and safety prompted animal rescuers to seek shelter for Zorik again.
“In the end he was so senile that he just fell asleep on the tracks or tram rails or just here on the road, so cars had to go around him,” said Valner.
Viktoria Ger, Zorik’s last caretaker, called him a “peculiar dog” who “doesn’t trust people,” which she said was the result of a life of hard living and abuse by some heartless people. Not everyone treated him with dignity, according to Valner, who called his story “a match of good and evil.”
In Zorik’s case, “kindness has won,” she said.