A three-year-old Russian girl found last month naked and crawling like a dog after being neglected by her alcoholic mother is being compared to Oxana Malaya, the feral child who was also raised by dogs until the age of eight, in 1991. The Russian media reports that "Medina" only knew two words — yes and no — when authorities found her on all fours growling and eating like an animal. The girl’s mother was reportedly an alcoholic — too drunk to care for her daughter.

Her story closely mirrors Malaya’s life. 

Malaya, from the Ukraine, was three years old when she disappeared from her alcoholic parents’ home and found shelter in a shed inhabited by dogs. She eventually took on traits similar to those of the animals she was living with — she began barking and growling, and developed stronger senses of smell, sight and hearing.

Malaya was discovered five years later, at age eight, and doctors first said it would be difficult for her to adjust to everyday life. Doctors believed that if a child doesn’t learn how to speak by age five, it becomes increasingly harder to learn the language. As of 2006, Malaya was living in a home for the mentally disabled and had once had a boyfriend.

A documentary for British Channel 4 documented her story — and her reunion with her father —  the biological one, not the paternal, but we think both of them are animals.