Oxana Malaya: The Girl Raised By Dogs
MarkMcDermott/YouTubeOxana Malaya spent years living in a kennel with dogs.
In 1994, a feral child was discovered living among wild dogs in the village of Nova Blagovishchenka in Ukraine. Local police had never dealt with feral humans before, and they had to use food in order to distract the hounds while they lured the young girl away from her canine friends.
The eight-year-old was eventually identified as Oxana Malaya, a local girl whose alcoholic parents had abandoned her outside in the cold five years earlier. Instinctively, Malaya had crawled into a dog kennel to seek warm shelter and spent the next five years with its inhabitants.
Sustained by whatever scraps of leftovers the canines were fed, Malaya may have occasionally entered her old house for additional food. But she undoubtedly lived a largely feral life outdoors until the police were called.
MarkMcDermott/YouTubeExamined as a young adult, Malaya was found to have the mental capacity of a six-year-old.
Her bond to the pack of dogs had been so strong that it was difficult for police to overcome, but assimilating Malaya into society and teaching her how to behave like a human again proved to be even more challenging.
As a ward of the state, Malaya was admitted to several psychiatric institutes and group homes. For a while, she was unable to speak and continued to walk on all fours. But Malaya eventually learned how to talk again, thanks to the minimal language she already knew from her early years.
At an orphanage school, Malaya was successfully taught a more wide-ranging vocabulary. She also learned how to walk upright again and to communicate like other human beings — at least for the most part.
Though Malaya is now in her late 30s, she still requires supervision at an adult care facility and will likely never be fully independent. She is also said to speak in a flat, emotionless tone, almost as if she’s being ordered to talk. But her bark remains as strong as ever, and whenever she’s given an object, her very first instinct is to hide it — just like a dog does with a bone.
