Sergei runs a private zoo right in the heart of Moscow, wrote the paper run by the local martial arts school. Head to his flat on Ulitsa Makarenko and you can see how he has managed to fit 40 dogs into one tiny flat, the paper gushed.

He has all kinds of rare breeds, from the Chistoprudny borzai to the Maroseika stray, which he found in and around Chistiye Prudy and brought to the zoo. Come to the zoo so that he can raise money to fit another couple of rare breeds inside the flat.

Be warned, the martial arts hack added, as he hammered the point so hard he could have split a brick in two, that you have to take certain things with you if you visit this zoo: a) respirator, b) rabies and plague vaccine, c) bandages, d) anti-flea powder.

Mr. Martial Arts Writer is almost certainly a disgruntled neighbor of Sergei's, and the result of all the barking, woofing and yapping is a half page story on the zoo, complete with Sergei's full address and telephone number. Nobody was answering Thursday, but hopefully the 40 dogs howled a hello to the neighbor when the phone rang.

If Sergei is the dogman I've seen, then they are exaggerating his love for dogs. If you sit at Coffee Bean on Ulitsa Pokrovka on a morning, you can often see the same six dogs waiting outside the produkty opposite.

The dogs, each a different size, each a mix of breeds which should never have met let alone lain down together, and all looking as if they were not the first dogs out of the kennel when brains were given out, sit watching the door, waiting, waiting.

Every time the door opens, they stand excitedly until they work out that it is not their master. Eventually, when he comes out, they trot behind him across the zebra crossing as he goes on to his next port of call.

Perhaps they all trot home afterward to join their 34 friends in his flat. But I doubt it.

Now, I'm not saying I want Sergei and his brood to move in next door to me. Maika, the podgy morose stray whom residents have let sleep inside my building for years, would get jealous -- but it is an article that clashes with a martial arts fighter's code of honor.

There are plenty of people in Moscow who have stuffed their flats full of strays, probably enough for a whole house of these zoos. But snide, anonymous articles seem a cowardly way to attack them. Especially when the paper's founder is listed as the regional council of the Kremlin-backed United Russia party.

They could have just called, but perhaps they were worried that the dogs would chew on their black belts.