Statue of Žorik in Tallinn, Estonia

Žorik was the best-known dog in Tallinn for most of his roughly fifteen years alive, at a time when free-roaming dogs had already grown rare in the city. Born in 2007 in Kalamaja, once a working-class fishing district that has since gentrified, he lost his first owner as a puppy and spent most of his life on the streets nearby. The vagabond dog drifted between the harbor and the parking lot outside a small shopping center, where residents kept him better fed than some of them ate themselves. Locals nicknamed him "the phantom dog," since he seemed to vanish into thin air whenever animal control tried to catch him. Many believed that past mistreatment had made him wary of anyone getting too close. He also earned a Russian nickname, Ugaljok ("little piece of coal"), for his all-dark head, shaggy muzzle, and otherwise black-and-white body. His admirers crossed community lines. He won over Russian-speaking pensioners who looked after him and Estonian hipsters who later opened a café named in his honor. In time, he came to be seen as a rare point of social integration in Kalamaja. As Žorik aged, he grew senile, and by 2020 had taken to falling asleep on the train tracks, tram lines, and…

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