The wandering menace protected by the state In 2019, the RA Parliament adopted a draft criminalizing animal cruelty. The RA criminal code provides up to 2 years of imprisonment for animal cruelty. The state initiated the sterilization of stray dogs and the decontamination process. With this step, the state, on the one hand, listened to the voice of animal defenders' struggle for years, on the other hand, it showed