The Telegraph profiles Oxana Malaya, a 23-year-old woman in Ukraine who, between the ages of 3 and 8, was raised by a pack of dogs. She currently lives in a home for the mentally disabled and has been featured in documentaries on the Discovery Channel and Channel Four. Apparently, she can still show eerily canine-like behaviors, including running on all fours, panting, and barking. From The Telegraph:
"I expected someone much less human," says (psychologist Lyn Fry, an expert on feral children and) the first non-Ukrainian expert to meet Oxana. "I'd heard stories that she could fly off the handle, that she was very unco-operative, that she was socially inept, but she did everything I asked of her.
"Her language is odd. She speaks flatly as though it's an order. There is no cadence or rhythm or music to her speech, no inflection or tone. But she has a sense of humour. She likes to be the centre of attention, to make people laugh. Showing off is quite a surprising skill when you consider her background. In the film, Miss Malaya looks unco-ordinated and tomboyish. When she walks, you notice her strange stomping gait and swinging shoulders, the intermittent squint and misshapen teeth. Like a dog with a bone, her first instinct is to hide anything she is given. She is only 1.52 metres tall but when she fools about with her friends, pushing and shoving, there is a palpable air of menace and brute strength. The oddest thing is how little attention she pays to her pet mongrel. "Sometimes, she pushed it away," says Ms Fry. "She was much more orientated to people."
Link (Thanks, Dave Lyons!)
