Catching up with the dogs of Sochi

Escaping severe treatment on the streets they called home at last year's Winter Games, a small faction of Russia's many lost dogs have found loving homes Stateside, bringing Olympic joy—medal or no medal—to their new owners. Snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis, hockey players Derek Stepan and Kelli Stack, and slopestyle skier Gus Kenworthy are just some who have given a home to the strays of Sochi.

Author:
SI Staff
Publish date:
Jul 9, 2015

Catching up with the dogs of Sochi

Lindsey Jacobellis and her dog Sochi

Olympic snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis’s first encounter with the mutt came when he hitched a ride atop her equipment bag as she was wheeling it into the hotel lobby. “I started bringing him treats,” she says. Within a few days she had U.S. Snowboarding chefs preparing bowls of table scraps for him. Not long after, she began looking into how to bring the puppy, whom she would name for the Olympics’ host city, back to Vermont.

Lindsey Jacobellis and her dog Sochi

“I wasn’t really looking to adopt a dog,” says Jacobellis, “but Sochi significantly impacted my three weeks over there. I felt like I had to repay that kindness in some way.”

Derek Stepan and his dog Jake

Blues center David Backes, who runs a nonprofit animal-welfare organization called Athletes for Animals with his wife, Kelly, brought two mongrels back to St. Louis in his carry-on luggage—Kelly had completed all the paperwork while David was competing. The Backeses already cared for two cats and four dogs, all rescued from U.S. shelters, so, after clearing quarantine, their dogs went to homes in New York. Jake is in Manhattan with Rangers center Derek Stepan.

Derek Stepan and his dog Jake

Jake splits his time between the Stepan’s Upper West Side apartment and the family’s second home in Minnesota. “He’s a cuddler,” says Derek's wife Stephanie. “He definitely is a little shy of new people, but he’s great with other animals.”

Kevin Shattenkirk's parents' dog Sochi Jr.

Keven-Shattenkirk-parents-dog-Sochi-Junior-IMG_0322.jpg — Courtesy of Patrick Shattenkirk

David Backes gave one of the dogs, Sochi Jr., to defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk, his Blues and Olympic teammate. Shattenkirk, in turn, handed Sochi over to his parents, who live in Westchester County, N.Y.

Gus Kenworthy and dogs Mishka and Jake

Gus-Kenworthy-Sochi-dogs-Mishka-and-Jake-X158695_TK1_113.jpg — Garrett Ellwood for Sports Illustrated

When the slopestyle skier first met Mamuchka, a mother dog and her four puppies, they were living under a trailer near the media center in Rosa Khutor. With help from Humane Society International and his friend, photographer Robin Macdonald, Kenworthy adopted the whole family. One puppy died before leaving Russia, and another, Rosa, died after getting to the U.S. The two surviving puppies, Jake and Mishka, now split time between Kenworthy’s home in Denver and Macdonald’s home in Vancouver. Mamuchka lives with Kenworthy’s mother, Pip, in the skier’s hometown of Telluride, Colo.

Gus Kenworthy and dogs Mishka and Jake

Gus-Kenworthy-Sochi-dogs-Mishka-and-Jake-X158695_TK1_009.jpg — Garrett Ellwood for Sports Illustrated

“I saw these dogs every day, and I knew what was happening to them,” says Kenworthy. “I didn’t want that to happen to dogs that I had fallen in love with.

Kelli Stack's dog Shayba

A center for the U.S. women’s hockey team—it was her shot that hit the post of an empty Canadian net with 90 seconds left in Team USA’s heartbreaking 3–2 overtime loss in the gold-medal game—Killi Stack now lives with Shayba, a German shepherd mix, in western Massachusetts. “Shayba obviously doesn’t replace a gold medal,” she says “But having a dog from the Olympics is a special part of my life. It made [losing the gold-medal game] a lot better.”

Amanda Bird and her dog Sochi

Sochi lives in Clarksville, Tenn., with Amanda Bird, the marketing and communications director for the USA Bobsled & Skeleton, and her husband, Jason Hartman. Bird first met Sochi when she accompanied a crew from E! News to the Povodog shelter. The puppy had parvo and distemper, but along with one other dog, he was brought back to Los Angeles by the TV crew. With help from the Jason Debus Heigl Foundation, which focuses on animal welfare, Sochi cleared quarantine and was delivered to Bird in May 2014. “His tongue is incredibly long,” says Bird. “He’s such a goofball.”

Katherine Heigl and her dog Billy Bean

Billy Bean also made the journey to the U.S. with the E! News crew. He lives on Katherine Heigl’s ranch in Utah—along with a number of other dogs, horses, miniature horses, goats and chickens—having come to the attention of the actress because his rescue was facilitated by her late brother’s foundation. When Billy came out of quarantine, says Jennifer Brent, the foundation’s executive director, Heigl was in L.A. and said, “Oh, well, he can stay at my house!” The rest is history.