ohmidog!

No, that’s not the ice cream man rolling down the streets of Lisichansk, a city of 100,000 in Ukraine.

It’s a crematorium on wheels, purchased by the city to more handily dispose of stray dogs — sometimes while they are still alive — as part of the country’s efforts to clean up its streets before next year’s Euro 2012 soccer championship.

(About two and a half minutes into the video above you can see city officials showing off their mobile crematorium.)

The vehicle is staffed by three employees — a driver, an oven operator and another who shoots strays with a syringe gun, paralyzing them.

The crematorium is capable of burning 40 kilos worth of dogs and cats at a time.

Lisichansk is not alone in trying to clear the streets of strays before the soccer championship,  being co-hosted by Ukraine and Poland.

The cities of  Kiev, Lviv, Kharkiv and Donetsk — all of which are hosting matches — have stray removal programs underway. In Kharkiv and Kiev, plans have been made to open shelters for strays found in the vicinity of Euro 2012 stadiums, but some other cities opt for extermination instead.

Sometimes, Lisichansk lends its mobile crematorium to neighboring  jurisdictions. How thoughtful.

Despite protests, from inside and outside the country, the stray removal program continues, and the mobile crematorium — which features temperatures of 900 degrees — keeps rolling.

A petition appealing to Ukrainian authorities to stop cremating live animals can be found on the website Care2.

According to the petition, Ukraine — rather than focusing on spaying and neutering and finding homes for strays — has long opted for less humane practices.

Stray dogs and cats were previously killed using an illegal poison called ditiline that paralyzed their respiratory muscles are paralyzed.

Officials consider the crematorium ” more modern” and “environmentally safe,” the petition says.