Kids brought up by animals

**XTREME** · #1 (**permalink**) 05-30-2009

Raised by dogs ... Natasha

Kids brought up by animals | The Sun |Woman

WE know there are some people out there who wouldn't win any awards for Parent of the Year, but surely being raised by humans has to be better than being brought up by a beast?

This week, a five-year-old girl was found in a flat in the Siberian city of Chita, dressed in filthy clothes, barking at people and 'displaying all the attributes of an animal.'

The girl, known only as 'Natasha', had been shut up in a flat for five years with only cats and dogs for company. As a result, she'd learned their behaviour and could not even speak her native language.

She has now been taken into care, but still exhibits dog-like behaviour, preferring to 'lap' her food from a plate rather than using cutlery, and jumping up against the door when her carers leave the room.

She understands Russian but can't speak it, and can only communicate through a series of barks. Horrifying as this sounds - and police are now searching for her parents to bring charges of child abuse against them - Natasha is not the only child to have grown up amongst animals after being abandoned to their care.

Another Russian child, Andrei Tolstyk, was discovered in 2004, aged seven, after being abandoned by his parents when he was only three months old.

He'd survived with the help of his family's guard dog, who looked after him as if he was a puppy. As a result, he walked on all fours, bit people who came near him, and sniffed at his food before eating it.

There are some even stranger cases out there. In 1991, John Ssebunya became known as the Ugandan 'Monkey Boy' after a villager came across a little boy roaming with a pack of monkeys. His knees were almost white because he'd been walking on them.

John had fled to the jungle when he was only three after his father murdered his mother, and lived wild there for three years after being befriended by five monkeys who taught him to forage for food and climb trees.

After being adopted by a couple who ran an orphanage, he was studied by experts who wanted to see how he interacted with monkeys. When left with a group of them, he avoided eye contact and approached them from the side with open palms, the way monkeys do.

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In 1920, two little girls were spotted with a pack of adult wolves in remote countryside in Midnapore, India.

They were tracked down to a wolf den, where they were found with a female wolf and two cubs. When they were taken to an orphanage, a missionary named them Kamala and Amala.

Kamala was thought to be five or six, and Amala around two years old. They ate raw meat like dogs, howled but couldn't talk, had exceptional night vision, and walked on all fours.

And at the end of the 19th century, a young girl was found in a bear's den in Jalpaiguri, in the east of India.

No-one is sure how she came to be there, but she had been raised by a she-bear and had many bear-like traits.

She tried to bite and scratch people, growled, and moved like a bear, using her arms as well as her legs. When she was taken to a hospital, she learned to walk, eat and drink like a human being.

In most cases, people do try to rehabilitate feral children, and hope to teach them how to get back to their human roots.

How much they learn depends on how much they knew before they were abandoned and how old they are.

STUNNED cops have discovered a five-year-old "Mowgli" girl who barks like a dog, laps up her food and walks on all fours.
'Feral dog' child found in Russia | The Sun |News

Feral Natasha cannot speak and experts fear her family treated her like one of their pets.

She lived in filthy conditions in the same home as her parents and grandparents in the Siberian city of Chita, Russia.

One neighbour said: "They never let her out, we didn't know she existed.
"They walked the dogs — they have three really vicious and angry ones — but we never saw this child."

The girl, physically underdeveloped and more like a two-year-old, was not registered with local doctors or hospitals.

Natasha is now under close observation in a local social rehabilitation centre.

Specialists are shocked at the way she jumps on people and plays dog games yet they say she is not mentally retarded, just starved of love and attention from humans.

Chief of the centre Nina Yemelchugova said: "When I went out of the room, she jumped at the door and started barking, not just mewing or something, but barking.

"She eats well, she's got a good appetite but she can't behave at the table, she throws away the spoon and laps up food from the plate."

Nervous

Natasha shuns the company of other children and gets nervous when she hears unexpected noises.

Local police chief Larisa Popova said officers entered the flat on Monday after a tip off from neighbours.

"We had to fight to get this girl away," she said.
Her parents were not there but the dogs sought to protect her.
"The child was living in absolute filthy conditions, the flat smells awful. There were a lot of animals, dogs and cats, and the girl was living with them.

"When we went into the flat we were almost knocked over by the stink."
Natasha was wearing torn and soiled clothes.

Yekaterina Novikova, who lives nearby, said: "These neighbours are unsociable, they only come out at night or early in the morning to avoid meeting with other locals and they never open the door."
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The mother — who has three other children living at another address — was arrested after going to police following local TV coverage of the girl being taken into care. She is now under interrogation.

Experts hope Natasha can recover with intensive education. She showed delight when an art teacher drew a picture of a flower.

The parents could face around three years in jail, according to Russian media reports.

This is the latest of a number of cases of feral children in the former Soviet Union. Neglected by their parents, these youngsters sought love and solace from animals, usually dogs.

Psychologists — who call the phenomenon Mowgli Syndrome — have blamed the social dislocation and economic woes which followed the break-up of the USSR.

**Lacy** · #2 (**permalink**) 05-30-2009

very interesting

**XTREME** · #3 (**permalink**) 05-30-2009

^^^Just added some more, the mother contacted police after seeing her on the news. What a fuckin psycho. Poor Baby.

**Lacy** · #4 (**permalink**) 05-30-2009

poor baby yes.At least the animals took her in.I cant even begin to fathom how confused that little girl is right now.

**papertowel18** · #5 (**permalink**) 06-02-2009

holy shit, thats intense.

**body_by_donuts** · #6 (**permalink**) 06-03-2009

dude that is nuts............

**gixxer82** · #7 (**permalink**) 06-03-2009

Yeah, Its not the first, the sociological term for it is "feral children"

**body_by_donuts** · #8 (**permalink**) 06-03-2009

I hate to be "that guy" on this subject but do you think the child could lick her own ass?

**XTREME** · #9 (**permalink**) 06-03-2009

^^^LMFAO

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