Mia means Mine

As a rule I don't post stories about urban dogs that aren't pets, but I'm making an exception in this case, to show the sad plight of ownerless city dogs. Displaced by welfare organizations that are supposed to be helping them; vulnerable and always unsafe in every way.

Meenakshee Soman, owner of Felix, wrote this touching story about a friendship found and lost.

Some months back on my daily walk with Felix (my faithful companion), a street dog accompanied us. On returning home I gave her water and some heavy petting…It was a female dog. She stayed in our colony for the next four days and then vanished..I looked around for her but in vain..

And on another such walk, in the parallel lane, suddenly a bundle of joy jumped on me and she was found. Again she followed us home and ever since then stayed in our colony.

She got a name (Mia) and vaccination. She was already spayed by the Municipality and released wrongly in our area.

She was hungry for love and a big foodie too...




But she was so loyal that in spite of staying on the street, she always preferred love and loyalty over food.

Whenever I would walk anywhere, no matter how far it was, she used to accompany me. She would be tired sometimes but she never left my side. She did not expect food from me, just needed some love and acceptance.

The best times were when she came with me to the railway station. The first time it happened, I had to come all the way home to drop her back to the colony. But my dad said she is a dog, she can come home without you. Next time I thought of trying it out and before I could even finish sending a text to my dad, she was home. It’s at least a 10 minute walk from the station to my place, on a busy street full of street dog 'pockets' in between. But she used to brave all that just to be with me. She became the Indian Hachiko.

For the last couple of months it wasn't just me but even the regular shopkeepers and people that I visit who had gotten used to her being with me all the time. She and Felix formed a racket and in turn a very strong bond. Felix did not like anyone saying anything to her or even shooing her away. In turn she tried to get the street dogs friendly towards Felix. She would just get into any unknown street dog group and try to bully them, getting into trouble at times. Then I was supposed to rescue her!

She also had a right to Felix’s food. She would come home and just have his food!





Initially she used to sleep a lot when she came home. But later she would come home, stay for a while, eat and then want to go back to the road. It was clear she didn't want to be restricted and missed her freedom on the road. She was a happy dog.



She had two boyfriends, Felix at home and Milo on the road. When Felix spotted something fishy on the street he would alert them and they would then chase out the suspicious-looking person or dog.

They were the ones that barked when a cycle was stolen from our society. But as usual mankind paid no heed to their barking.

And when all was going well it abruptly came to an end without any notice. On the night of 5th March, after her feeding session, she went missing. No one saw her after that night.

As usual I looked for her; but then there is no nearby area from which she can't return. After all she has come with me almost up to 1 - 3.5 km radius of my house.

No inquiry yielded any result.

We thought that maybe someone had taken her home but it's been days and she is missed and remembered every day. No one greets me each time I leave and come back, right at my society gate. No one accompanies me any longer. And it’s just Felix and me on our night walks.

It feels so lonely without her. With her abundant love and faithfulness, she left a lasting mark on our lives. Felix and Milo are missing her terribly, with Felix going cranky and Milo sad.

She showed that one doesn’t need money or lots of time to create lasting and positive memories.

Here’s hoping that she is well and will return home soon safe and sound.



Story and photos: Meenakshee Soman
Thane

Whose dog is it anyway?

If you've been around a while you may have noticed that I fuss quite a bit about using the correct words for things canine. The "stray" word is my favourite target.

I've said it all in this earlier post Who's straying?

We should be particularly careful not to use the "s" word loosely when speaking of village dogs, unless we are absolutely sure the dogs we are referring to are ownerless, homeless or feral.
And now I'm going to shut up (for the time being) and let these pictures do the talking.

Dog 1: Sawra village, Maharashtra









Above, below: See that "stray" dog?



Dog 2: Kumre family's dog, Sawra village, Maharashtra







Above, below: What does the Kumre dog look like now? A "stray"?



Dogs 3: Near Pench, Maharashtra



Above: Now these must be "stray dogs," trotting along the street in front of those goats.



Above: Well, no. They are livestock guarding dogs, owned by this villager.

Dog 4: Nagaon village, Konkan coast, Maharashtra



Above: A "stray" on the beach. A very well-fed one too.



Above: He turns out to have an owner after all...

Dogs 5: Nagaon, Konkan coast, Maharashtra



Above: A litter of half-grown pups that I sometimes see wandering around near my house.



Above: The big picture. That's their mother in the background, standing in her owner's yard. The owner of these dogs is a man called Balchandra Apte. The mother has been around for several years.

Moral of the story: do a little research before deciding on the status of village dogs. Urban people, please understand that this is the model of dog ownership in Indian villages. Pet dogs do not usually wear collars. They spend part of their day roaming around, though they have homes and owners to go back to. Village houses and plantations are usually not fenced and there is no restriction on their movements.

Some villagers let their dogs sleep inside the house (like the Sawra villagers, who are mostly Gond tribals). Other villagers keep them in their yards or on their porch. Roaming around freely is normal and is not frowned on, unless the dog kills poultry (rare).

When I accompanied the Cornell team to collect samples from village dogs in Orissa, we were greeted with suspicion in almost every village. We had to explain that the dogs would not be harmed or taken away, before we were allowed to collect blood samples.

A similar thing happened in Moharli near Tadoba Tiger Reserve, when I was wandering around the village clicking dog pictures. Someone pointed out a house in which there was apparently a fine red dog. When I asked the lady of the house if I could see her pet, she first demanded whether I had come to kill him?

A year ago a Nagaon "stray" dog got hit and killed by a tourist bus in our lane. Her owner chased the bus to the beach, hauled the driver out and thrashed him.

Village owners may not cuddle their pets or talk to them in baby talk as we city people do. Some of these dogs have names and others don't. But please don't think that nobody cares about them.

And I would strongly recommend the term "village dog" as a more accurate one than "stray."

Photos: Taken by me in Sawra, Pench Tiger Reserve, Maharashtra, and
Nagaon, Raigad district, Maharashtra

Ghattu, victim of an inferior INDog-owner

Amid all the happy INDog stories, let's not forget that the third-rate low-life kind of dog owner is still flourishing all over the country (and of course the world), and many unlucky dogs of all breeds suffer because of this rubbish class of people.

It's a sad coincidence that this incident took place in Ahmedabad, because similar things happen everywhere after all. However, Ahmedabad seems to be particularly full of tragic animal stories, many about dogs and others about the mass butchering of birds during their famous kite-flying festival. Gandhi would have been proud of this city, wouldn't he?

Here's the story of Ghattu's sad little life, reported by my friend who witnessed it.



"It's a happy thing when a street dog becomes a pet dog and gets a loving home....but too sad when a pet dog gets abandoned and is forced to live as a street dog again.

"This happened to poor Ghattu....our 'animal-loving' neighbours' dog who was living with them since she was a small puppy. They'd been planning to move to Canada for a long time, and sometimes they talked about taking Ghattu along, and sometimes they said that a relative with a farm house will take care of her. I stopped asking them what would happen to Ghattu when they leave because I had the impression that they will take care of her or at least find her a place.

"On 4 December, the woman of the family asked me in the afternoon whether I knew anyone who would take Ghattu. She said she is worrying about her because they are leaving for Canada on the 5th evening. How stupid is that??? Hardly 24 hours before departure, it came into their minds to think about their dog....I couldn't believe it! When I told her that the idea of finding her a new home had come just a bit late, a day before leaving, she just ignored it and the next day, none of them said good bye to us."



"And Ghattu was on the road now. The very next morning, the grandparents kicked her out, kept a water plate and food plate outside the gate and locked it. That was it, Ghattu was thrown out after two years of staying mainly indoors, or semi-indoors, mostly on a tiny balcony...She was not toilet trained (that's why they kept her always on that balcony) and she was also not friendly with other female dogs, except the one in the colony who was her mother.

"Ghattu tried to enter many peoples' homes the next day, through any open door, she was inside...and was loudly shoooed off.

"Surprisingly, she didn't bark or howl at all after they left and after she was thrown out. I think she quickly realized what kind of people she had stayed with all her life and that they were not worth missing or mourning. The clever girl joined our society dog pack and the alpha male seemed to like her a lot, which meant that within a short time, she would have her own puppies because she was not sterilized. When I went for a walk with my dogs, she followed us but then spent her time on the garbage dump outside the colony gate or roamed around inside the colony. I hoped no-one would call the AMC again."



"And now she has passed away already.

"I hadn't seen her for a few days and when I asked the grandparents of the family, they told me she had had foam on her mouth and died the very next day. May she rest in peace. I hope she'll meet Bandra and other departed dogs and she can forget about the short and sad life she had among careless and hopelessly selfish people who pretended to like her but actually killed her by leaving her out on her own.
"Once again a sad Amdavadi dog story, one among plenty here. Let's hope for justice in 2011 and as you said, more respect for INDogs. But here, it has to start with the very basics such as that INDogs deserve to live...respect, care, recognition are still very very far away in this part of Gujarat...I never came across any Gandhian spirit here, it's nothing but ironic to call this city Gandhi's place."
I'm sure like most Indians (and unlike me), Ghattu's former owners are very religious people, observe all known rituals and consider themselves deeply moral. Here's my New Year message for all such hypocrites. Read the Mahabharata, it begins and ends with dog stories. If you are barely literate, ask someone to tell you how this great epic ends.

The short version: King Yudhistir reaches Heaven after a long and difficult journey across the Himalayas. His brothers and wife have fallen on the way; his only companion is a dog who has followed him faithfully to the end. But the dog is denied entry. And Yudhistir refuses to enter Heaven because to abandon the creature would be profoundly sinful.

Fortunately the dog is actually the god Dharma in disguise, and this was a test of the king's character.

Would all Indians - god-fearing, scripture-reading, holier-than-thou as they mostly are - pass such a test of character?

Possibly not. They fail it every day, every time one of them betrays and abandons an innocent animal. I piously pray for the same fate for all such human waste products.

Ahmedabad

Shalini and Somu's tea party

Look what happened to Nicole's morning tea when she left it unattended for a few minutes.



Shalini gets to slurp first...





Somu takes over...and Nicole decides to click instead of reclaiming the partially slurped tea...





And look how beautiful Somu's grown! Don't all Indies, when looked after well? Click here
for earlier posts about Somu and Shalini and Deepa (who now lives in Switzerland with Nicole's parents).

I really really like that Somu can now dig as much as he wants without getting beaten half to death for it. Yes, in Ahmedabad, it is sometimes the sad fate of pups to get battered and even killed for doing normal puppy things, like digging in people's gardens or chewing slippers. In case you're an Amdavadi reading this, please check some earlier posts in this blog before taking offence and deciding to sue me.

I look at my neighbourhood and I wonder, what makes most (if not all) Mumbaikars so much more civilized towards dogs than Amdavadis are? I think it's awareness. NGOs and animal lovers here are very vocal and the media has been supportive. There have been sensitization programmes here since 1993 (I worked on one myself in my animal welfare days). There are certainly lots of people in Mumbai who don't like street dogs, or any dogs, but few resort to violence.

Whereas the few active NGOs in Ahmedabad seem to have completely let down the street dogs with their silence on cruelty and welfare issues and their non-existent public awareness programme. What a pity and what a shame.

Well, Somu at least has had a lucky escape. In fact he has recently discovered that he likes sofas!









Photos: Nicole Poyyayil
Ahmedabad

Dislocation 6 - Report displaced dogs

More canine victims of displacement. These two dogs were reported by Sourabh Edwankar. Both were dumped in Duttapada Borivali East. Both have notched ears.

They are not from the Duttapada area but seem to have been dropped there after neutering.

If you are a Mumbai dog lover and happen to recognize these dogs - if by any chance they were picked up from your area and never returned - please email esourabh@hotmail.com

Charu Shah has started a count of all displaced dogs reported by animal lovers (there have been quite a few). If you live in Mumbai and have noticed new dogs with notched ears in your area, OR if a dog from your area was picked up for neutering and never returned, please email Charu on shahcharu76@yahoo.com and tell her the details for the list.

Mumbai

Dislocation 5 - Causes, solutions

What's the reason for displacement?

A crucial aspect of the ABC programme, the catching and release of dogs, is left entirely to the municipal corporation staff, with no participation by the animal welfare organizations.

The flaw in this system is over-optimism. After all the corporation has never shown any real commitment to the ABC programme and has actually tried to hamper it in different ways over the past 17 years. Is it realistic to trust them to carefully return each dog to its own area? The evidence suggests no.

There IS a solution

If they chose to, NGOs could follow the example of the Visakha SPCA, a dynamic NGO in Andhra Pradesh.

VSPCA has strict procedures to ensure that neutered dogs are returned to their own areas. They send their own personnel with the municipal team on catching and release trips and maintain records about the exact location of each dog.

While I don't work in the birth control programme any more, I know and respect several of the NGO managers and I am aware of how hard they work and what a struggle it is to raise funds in a society that doesn't prioritize animal welfare at all. The reason they do not hire personnel to accompany the catch and release vans is not apathy though it may appear that way; it is simply an understandable wish to cut down expenses.

However this kind of economical measure is self-defeating since it results in extreme suffering and possibly the death of many dogs. Which means all the hard-earned money spent on neutering those dogs has actually been wasted.

Displacement is a cardinal error, violating the principles of both animal welfare and animal control. It also destroys the credibility of the ABC programme. Vizag SPCA is as strapped for funds as any other animal welfare NGO; yet they do not cut corners when it comes to a dog's safety. Their's seems the responsible way to use donors' money, which is given in good faith in the expectation that it will be used for the betterment of dogs' lives.

Time for my disclaimer:

This is NOT an attack on any NGO or on NGOs in general. In the unlikely event that any NGO people read this, there will possibly be indignant reactions like "does she know how hard we have to work" and "does she think it's easy to raise money" and "easy to criticize when she just sits at the comp and does no real work."

Yes I do appreciate how tough and thankless animal welfare work is. I've been there. I also have great respect for the intelligence and honesty of the NGO people I know, and I believe they will acknowledge the truth of what I've written here.

These dogs can't tell people about their distress. I'm doing it for them. I can't do much else, but I can at least do that.

Mumbai

Dislocation 4 - Tragedies

I've read about other displaced dogs through the animal-lovers network. Dogs that are picked up for neutering but never returned, and new dogs with notched ears suddenly appearing in a neighbourhood. Recently I read a very sad appeal from a lady in Borivali, asking people to look out for two friendly little brown females that were never returned to their area after sterilization. Another dog lover replied that this has happened often with dogs in her area.

Dogs are living creatures, not statistics, and even a single displacement is extremely cruel and one too many. But if my street is a sample of what is happening all around town, the magnitude of this cruelty is horrifying. I'm referring to only a one kilometre stretch of my street, and seven dogs have been dumped here in the past year! What must be happening in the rest of the city?

Dogs can maul and even kill each other in territorial fights. A friend in Bangalore once described a nightmarish incident. A dog had been dropped in her area (Sultan Palya) and she had tried to befriend him and feed him. But she couldn't protect him from the neighbourhood dogs. The next morning she found his dead body on the pavement, bitten all over and bloody.

My sister told me about a similar lethal dog fight in Kolkata.



Above: The two displaced dogs in the meat shop lane near my house, chasing away an unsterilized dog who had entered the lane. The brown dog's head is visible on the left and the patchy one is in the centre.

Mumbai

Do read Dislocation 5

Dislocation 3 - New in my neighbourhood

Of the seven neutered dogs dumped in my street, these are the three that have managed to settle and make their home here.



Above, below: I first saw these two dogs in March. They had settled in my old Puppy's territory after I adopted her. Later they shifted to a meat shop in a little side-lane.





Above: This one was dumped outside our house some time last year. He lives on a pavement that had been unoccupied by dogs for the past few years.

These are the lucky ones.

Mumbai

Do read Dislocation 4

Dislocation 2 - The Animal Birth Control (ABC) Programme

This is the official dog population control programme in India. It's been in force in Mumbai since 1994.

For this programme to succeed, it is critical that dogs are returned to their original location after neutering and vaccination. This ensures that the dog population is not destabilized. The dogs guard their territory against newcomers for their life-span, do not breed or show the behaviour problems associated with mating aggression, and over the years the population gradually reduces.

Anyone familiar with the behaviour of free-ranging dogs would know that this is really the only long-term solution to the "street dog problem." There are certain conditions that have to be met though - a high rate of operations, a vigorous public education campaign, high standards of surgery and post-operative care, and release of the dog in its own territory.

The programme was successful in my area (in south Mumbai) and some other parts of Mumbai. I was actively involved in it for 14 years and tried to supplement the catching done by NGOs and the municipal corporation, by taking dogs for surgery in my own car every week. No pup had been born on my street for years. The dogs were aging, fed well by several kind people, and the population was reducing naturally.

Today thanks to displacement, I feel that much of our hard work has been undone. There are actually more dogs near my house now than there were three years ago!

Mumbai

Do read more in Dislocation 3

Dislocation 1

This is a dog I saw on 29 October in the park near our house. I'd never seen him before though I walk there every day.

He had a notched ear (see the picture below), indicating that he has been neutered under the Animal Birth Control programme.



The reason the pictures are blurred: he was scared and running frantically around the park and wouldn't stand still for very long. He seemed to have been dropped by mistake in my area, presumably after being sterilized by one of the non-profit organizations in the city.

Probably sensing my sympathy, he came and stood next to me for a few seconds (that's when I clicked the picture above). Then he started running again, as if desperately looking for a way out of there but scared to go because of all the dogs outside.

I wanted so badly to help him in some way - but how?

Late that night I heard the unmistakable sounds of dogs fighting - howls, snarls, screams - from the dark sea face and park. Fairly easy to guess it had something to do with the local dogs objecting to the presence of the newcomer.

The next morning I couldn't go to the park but my husband reported that he had seen the dog of my photo, running around like before. That night there were howls, screams and fighting again.

The third morning the dog was gone.

This is the seventh dog that has been dumped in this part of the street (SBS Marg) in the past year.

All had notched ears, all were terrified and running, and the night following their arrival there was fighting and howling on the seafront. Except for three, they all seem to have met with the same fate as this poor pale dog of 29 October. Probably they were hounded out of the area by the local dogs, because neither my husband nor I ever saw them again. I hope at least some of them survived and reached their original neighbourhood.

I don't blog about animal welfare much because there are already many excellent sites that cover welfare topics. But as a dog lover I can't help being deeply depressed by the plight of the displaced dogs. Surely any dog lover would hate to see such a thing?

Mumbai

Do read more in Dislocation 2

Who's straying?

"The vet keeps describing Poppy as a 'stray,' " said my mother. "I told him she was never a stray. She was the petrol pump puppy before I adopted her. Even her father wasn't a stray. He was the Temple Towers dog."

I think this was a remarkably acute comment, like much of what she says on the topic of language for that matter. But then my mother's career and specialization was in linguistics, and it's normal for her to analyze words and their usage. Most of us tend to mindlessly accept common terms and rattle them off like talking parrots. Me included.

That's why I accepted and used the grossly inappropriate "s" word for many years, though something about it made me uneasy (yes, really). Back in 1993 when I used to work in the street dog birth control programme, a couple of other NGO managers had suggested we refer to these dogs as street dogs and not strays. The 1990 Guidelines for Dog Population Management (WHO and WSPA) described the term stray as "imprecise because a dog found straying may be lost, abandoned or merely roaming."

Roaming and straying - these are different things. If I take a walk around my neighbourhood, would you say I'm "straying?" The point usually overlooked is that all our dogs DO have a neighbourhood, a territory.

As for the odd use of the word as interchangeable with "native" or Indian dog, as in "I own a stray dog" or "my dog is a stray" - this is a bizarre contradiction but it's depressingly common in our country (remember my mother's remark about her vet). As I've mentioned before, the word doesn't refer to breed but (vaguely) to the ownership status of a dog, as understood from municipal acts. How can your pet be an ownerless dog?



Although in 1973 Alan M. Beck used the word stray in his famous book "The Ecology of Stray Dogs," he did sub-title it "A Study of Free-Ranging Urban Animals." His study was of the dogs of Baltimore. Nowadays biologists do not use the term stray, specially for the dogs of Asia and Africa. The correct term is free-ranging.

I'm now quoting from the Glossary I've compiled in the INDog site, because I've said it all there (and I'm assuming nobody has read it!)

Actually the use of the word "stray" for India's free-roaming dogs is highly debatable. Dog enthusiast Gautam Das once pointed out that the usage arose from the British meaning of a dog that is owned by someone and has "strayed" from its home or owner. In Indian languages such as Marathi, the word used is "bhatakta" which would more correctly be translated as "wandering" or "roaming." This is rather different from "straying" which always implies that the dog is somewhere it shouldn't be (with the further implication that a dog should always be in a human dwelling or not exist at all?)

The implication that a dog has no right to be in any place but a human home is inappropriate when applied to India's free-roaming dogs. Such dogs have specific territories even if they don't have homes in the European sense. So they certainly aren't "straying" from anywhere.

In the countries of northern Europe the category of free-living or community dog does not exist, and any dog roaming unsupervised would therefore be an abandoned or straying pet. This is an example of English canine terminology being mechanically accepted for usage without taking the Indian context into consideration.

Even pet dogs in villages are often described as "strays" in English, since they wear no collars and roam unsupervised.

It would be best to use the terms "street dog" or "neighbourhood dog" in the urban context, and "free-roaming dog" in the rural one.

One can imagine the first Englishmen in India, setting eyes on our free-ranging scavenging dogs and saying "look at all those strays!" And sadly the term stuck...

Click here for an earlier (and shorter) post on this topic. And thanks for reading!

Photos: Free-ranging dogs in Nagpur, clicked by me in 2008

The origin of urban free-ranging dogs

I've been meaning to blog on this topic for some time.

This is about the origin of the urban free-ranging dog, commonly (and questionably) called the "stray." It's my effort to fill in the blank of "where did urban street dogs come from in the first place?"

Though this is not an animal welfare site, I've come across some strange theories about street dogs here and there and want to put across my opinion too.

Mine is based on my reading about free-ranging dogs, aboriginal dogs, dog evolution, and also on my personal experiences and observations of nearly two decades of dog-watching.

I believe that to understand how free-ranging dogs came into being, we have to first understand how dogs came into being. Please don't skip this bit, it's important.

I agree with the theory, brilliantly put forward by the biologists Raymond and Lorna Coppinger, that dogs are NOT the result of intentional domestication by humans: rather they are self-domesticated, like the domestic cat. In a nutshell, when humans started living in settlements, the garbage they created (bones and other edible waste) would have attracted wild carnivores as an easily obtainable source of food. Some species of wild canid, possibly the wolf or some other canid now extinct, took to scavenging rather than hunting as an easy means of survival.

Over generations this canid changed physically until it had perfectly adapted to its new ecological niche: scavenger around humans. It had evolved into what the Coppingers call the Village Dog: a domestic dog of generalized appearance, habituated to proximity to and dependence on humans, in other words no longer wild.

The Coppingers point out that this type of dog is still to be found in some parts of the world today. Never intentionally "bred" or tampered with by humans, but a product of natural selection alone. What PADS and other experts/enthusiasts call the primitive or aboriginal dog.

To many (including me), this is a much more acceptable explanation of dog domestication than the conventional theory we were brought up to believe - that Neolithic Man went forth and captured and domesticated the Wolf, and by some mysterious technique created the Dog. It is much more likely that the dog created itself, and only AFTER that had happened, Man started picking up pups and much much later, selectively breeding them for specific functions. Hunting, guarding livestock, guarding property.

Only in the last 200 years have dogs been bred for their looks and for winning prizes in the show ring. Almost all the "pure" breeds (as we call them) were developed only in the last two centuries.

So what has all this to do with India's free-ranging dogs and the much discussed "stray dog" issue?

Some Indians seem to believe that our street dog population has been created by a large-scale ongoing abandonment of pets. This is a perfect example of how facts and ideas from Europe/USA are unquestioningly accepted and mechanically applied to Asia, without any thought or research into dog populations here. Yes, most feral dog populations in Europe and the USA are descended from abandoned dogs of many breeds. But here?

Zooarchaeology and ancient literature show us that India has had free-ranging scavenging dogs since the earliest times. Such dogs are mentioned in the Panchatantra and the Mahabharata and elsewhere (read Sanskrit scholar Willem Bollee's interesting compilation mentioned below). Was there really such a mindbogglingly large-scale abandonment of pets over 2500 years ago as to result in such flourishing street dog populations? Slightly hard to believe. Where did all those pets come from anyway?

Here's the more realistic explanation for the existence of urban street dogs. Village dogs in the free-ranging scavenger niche have existed for thousands of years, at least 15000 years if not earlier. Many are pet dogs, as anyone who spends time in rural India will have noticed. But they roam unsupervised and also scavenge like ownerless dogs, and to people unfamiliar with village life they would seem like "strays."

As urbanization takes over rural areas, these village dogs become city street dogs. If you've watched Navi Mumbai develop and grow you will have seen this happening, that is if you pay attention to dogs of course. I can see the same process taking place in the small town Alibag as it grows and spreads into the surrounding countryside. It's happened for centuries around the country and it's happening now.

Garbage is much more abundant in cities thanks to the density of human population - and that directly leads to increased numbers of dogs, until the carrying capacity of the neighbourhood has been reached. Although primitive and aboriginal dogs breed only once a year and infant mortality is high, enough pups survive to fill territorial niches vacated by death and dispersal of adult dogs.

Abandoned pets must be adding to this population, but common sense and observation should tell us that they are not the main source. For one thing pet ownership itself is not as common in urban India as in developed countries. An example: only three families in our building own dogs (out of 124 apartment owners), and in the 20 odd flats in the remaining three buildings of our society, only three families own dogs. I'd say this is the pattern in most residential buildings in Mumbai or Kolkata (the other city I know well). This is not comparable to the 39 per cent of people estimated to keep dogs in the US (click here for the source of this figure).

Also compare the type of dogs kept as pets to the ones you see living on the road. If all of us in our housing society were to abandon our pets suddenly, that would put two pekingese, a french poodle, a labrador, a dachshund, a lhasa apso, a boxer and three neutered INDogs on the mean streets of Mumbai. Guess how many would survive let alone breed? Also, does the street dog population really consist of labradors, german shepherds, pugs, boxers, pekingese and the like? Granted our urban dog population is mongrelized and certainly not pure indigenous dog, but neither are they all solely of "pedigreed" dog descent.

And that's enough from me for now. All other aspects of the "stray dog issue" have been written about at length elsewhere and do not really belong in this blog.

Further reading:

• Those interested in this topic should read the glossary in the INDog site.
• Also read the articles in the "Links" section of the site, specially those by Dr Sunil K Pal who has researched the behaviour of free-ranging dogs for many years.
• Raymond and Lorna Coppinger's "Dogs: A Startling New Understanding of Canine Origin, Behaviour & Evolution" is widely acclaimed and one of the most interesting books I've ever read.
• Stephen Budiansky's "The Truth About Dogs."
• Professor Willem Bollee's Indological study "Gone To The Dogs In Ancient India."

The street dog issue: problems, solutions, FAQs

I know I've stated in the blog introduction (white panel, right) that this is not a welfare or animal rights blog, and we are not going to discuss the "stray dog issue" here because there are many other sites and blogs doing that. I do make some exceptions though. Welfare and rights issues inevitably pop up from time to time when free-roaming dogs are discussed. Recently the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation stirred up a lot of controversy over their barbaric dog control methods and persecution of animal rights activist Lisa Warden (whose posts have appeared in this blog several times). I've written something about that controversy at the end of this post.

Here are FAQs about street dogs I wrote several years ago, for the animal welfare NGO I used to work for at the time (WSD). We printed them as a leaflet and also put them in the NGO website. I was informed that the organization is going to rework their site and I'm not sure they'll retain this, so I decided to copy it here. All questions and answers were based on feedback from the public, documented facts and my personal observation of thousands of dogs over 14 years of hands-on work. I've updated a few of the answers. You might find some of this useful if you have to answer similar questions at any time. You can currently also read the FAQs in this WSD web link.

Q1. Why are there so many stray dogs here anyway? Why aren’t there any in London and New York?
A1. The urban environment in India has two features that encourage stray animal populations – exposed garbage and slums. Neither of these exists in developed countries.

Stray dogs are scavengers and garbage provides an ample source of food for them. In the absence of this food source, dogs would not be able to survive on the streets. Moreover in India and most other south-east Asian countries, stray dogs are also kept as free-roaming pets by slum-dwellers and street-dwellers such as ragpickers.

There are stray dogs in developed countries too – but they are abandoned pets, or feral dogs (meaning dogs who were once pets but now live like strays). They are unable to survive or breed on city streets since they can find nothing to eat. Most are captured, housed in animal shelters and rehomed.

Q2. Why did the municipal corporation stop killing dogs?
A2. Mass killing of dogs as a population control measure was started by the British in the 19th Century. It was continued on a large scale (up to 50,000 dogs killed every year) after Independence by the municipal authorities all over India, with the aims of eradicating human rabies deaths and the stray dog population. By 1993, it was admitted to be a complete failure, since human rabies deaths had actually increased, and the dog population was also perceptibly growing.

Studies by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Animal Welfare Board of India (Ministry of Environment & Forests) show that dog population control measures which work in developed countries are unsuccessful in third world developing countries, since urban conditions are very different. The urban environment here encourages breeding of stray dogs, so no matter how many dogs were killed, they were quickly replaced by more.

That’s why in January 1994, the killing programme was replaced by mass sterilisation of stray dogs. The sterilisation programme is carried out by non-government organisations in collaboration with the municipal corporation.

Q3. If stray dog population control is the issue, wouldn’t it make more sense to kill the dogs or take them away?
A3. Removal or killing of stray dogs seems to be the most obvious method of controlling the population, but it has actually proved to be completely useless. This is because even when large numbers of dogs are killed, the conditions that sustain dog populations remain unchanged. Dogs are territorial and each one lives in its own specific area. When they are removed, the following things happen:

• The food source – garbage – is still available in abundance, so dogs from neighbouring areas enter the vacant territories.

• Pups born and growing up in the surrounding areas also move in to occupy these vacant niches.

• The few dogs who escape capture and remain behind attack these newcomers, leading to frequent and prolonged dog-fights.

• Since they are not sterilised, all the dogs who escape capture continue to mate, leading to more fighting.

• In the course of fights, dogs often accidentally redirect their aggression towards people passing by, so many humans get bitten.

• Females with pups become aggressive and often attack pedestrians who come too close to their litter.

• They breed at a very high rate. It has been estimated that two dogs can multiply to over 300 in three years.

Since dogs who are removed are quickly replaced, the population does not decrease at all. The main factors leading to dog aggression – migration and mating – continue to exist, so the nuisance factor remains.

Since removal of dogs actually increases dog-related problems, the effective solution is to sterilise the dogs, vaccinate them against rabies and put them back in their own areas.

Q4. But what’s the point of putting the dogs back after sterilisation? Doesn’t the problem just continue?
A4. No, when dogs are sterilised and put back in their own area, the population and the problems caused by dogs both reduce. Here’s how:

• Each dog guards its own territory and does not allow new dogs to enter.

• Since they are all neutered, they no longer mate or multiply.

• The main factors leading to dog aggression – migration and mating - are eliminated. So dog-fights reduce dramatically.

• With the decrease in fighting, bites to humans also decrease.

• Since females no longer have pups to protect, this source of dog aggression is also eliminated.

• Over a period of time, as the sterilised dogs die natural deaths, the population is greatly reduced.

Please remember, there is NO overnight solution to the stray dog issue. It is simply not possible to wish all the dogs away. With sterilisation, the population becomes stable, non-breeding and non-rabid and decreases over time. It also becomes largely non-aggressive. On the other hand, when dogs are removed or killed, new dogs keep entering an area and the population is continuously changing, unstable, aggressive, multiplies at a high rate and carries rabies. Which method makes more sense?

Q5. Why don’t you dog-lovers just keep all these stray dogs in your own homes?
A5. Dog-lovers have not created the stray dog population. They merely try to minimise it through sterilisation, and to keep it rabies-free through vaccination. Moreover, even if a lot of stray dogs got adopted, the basic problems of vacant territories and dog replacement would remain.

(By the same logic, people who love children could be asked to keep the entire population of street children in their own homes!)

Incidentally, our organisation does promote the adoption of pariahs and mongrels - so if someone you know is planning to buy a pure-breed dog, try and persuade him to adopt a stray instead. Although it won’t provide a large-scale solution, you will have the satisfaction of knowing you got one dog off the street!

Q6. Can’t some of the dogs be released in another place?
A6. Since they would be entering the territory of other dogs, there would be a lot of fighting in the area in which they are released, and in the process more humans would get bitten. Their original territories would also be left vacant, so new dogs would enter… and the stray dog problem would go on forever.

Q7. What about rabies? Don’t they all spread rabies?
A7. Only rabid dogs spread rabies. Healthy ones don’t.

The World Health Organisation recommends mass vaccination of dogs as the only effective way to eradicate human rabies. Mass vaccination has led to a significant decrease in human rabies deaths in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Jaipur and Mumbai itself. Recently Fethiye in southwestern Turkey implemented this programme and dog-related problems have reduced.

The sterilisation programme includes anti-rabies vaccination. Our organisation also annually vaccinates a large number of stray dogs on site. Between 1993 and 2005, we have vaccinated over 37,000 stray dogs.

Q8. But didn’t dog-killing help in controlling rabies?
A8. Dog-killing was ineffective as a rabies eradication measure, since the catchers only captured healthy dogs and the rabid ones were left to spread the disease. Official sources also claim that half of human rabies deaths are caused by unvaccinated pets, so once again killing stray dogs is of no use.

The killing method has failed to control rabies in developing countries worldwide – including Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Cambodia, North Korea, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Jordan, Syria, Yemen, Bangladesh, Nepal, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

Q9. I sometimes see dogs with skin problems and hairless patches – aren’t they all rabid?
A9. Skin problems and fur fall are not symptoms of rabies. Rabies affects the central nervous system, not the skin. Probably the confusion occurred because there is a skin disease called scabies. Strangely, this question is asked quite often in India.

Q10. How exactly do you sterilise the dogs? Are both males and females sterilised?
A10. Both males and females need to be sterilised, because while the females actually give birth to more dogs, the males are more aggressive and have much higher nuisance value. Complaints from the public are almost always about males.

Both males and females are surgically sterilised at our centre, under general anaesthesia, by qualified veterinary surgeons. The process is also called neutering. In the case of females the ovaries and uterus are removed, and in the case of males the testicles are removed. Therefore both mating and breeding cease. The dogs are kept for post-operative care for a period of 8 days and then released in their original location.

Q11. Ok, so the birth rate of dogs comes down over time…but what about dog-bites?
A11. As explained earlier, most dog aggression occurs during mating time, as dogs cross territories to mate and fight with other dogs whose areas they enter. Humans passing by get accidentally bitten in the course of these dog-fights. This problem ends when all the dogs from a neighbourhood are sterilised.

As testosterone levels come down after sterilisation, male dogs also become less aggressive. Stray dog females are usually aggressive only when they have puppies to protect, so with sterilisation this problem ends as well.

Q12. Dogs bark and howl the whole night – how can you solve that problem?
A12. Barking and howling occur during dog-fights, which take place at their mating time, so with sterilisation the problem disappears. Dogs bark when new dogs enter their territory, and as these migrations cease with sterilisation, the barking largely ends too. They also howl when they live and move in packs. When the dog population dwindles in size, pack behaviour also declines.

Q13. How would I know if a dog has been sterilised?
A13. Nowadays all NGOs make a triangular notch in one of the ear flaps, making it very easy to recognize a sterilized dog. The notch is a sharply cut one, quite different from a natural tear in the ear.

Q14. The dog problem may have reduced in South Mumbai – but there are still so many dogs in the suburbs. What’s being done about that?
A14. The human population and the number of high-rise buildings are growing very fast in the suburbs, leading to suddenly increased amounts of garbage, leading to a large population of stray dogs.

Organizations in South Mumbai have been working consistently for many years in South Mumbai, which is why the dog population has reduced there. Animal welfare organisations working in the suburbs started operations much later, and will need some time to show results. It's very important to cover slums because these are the main breeding areas for dogs. Also market areas and the rocky seaface all along the western side of the city.

Q15. How did stray dogs originate anyway?
A15. India has long been home to the Pariah Dog, one of the world’s oldest canine breeds. In slightly varied forms, the Pariah Dog has existed for over 14,000 years all over Asia and North Africa. Most rural families own at least one. As villages and rural areas turned into cities, these dogs became stray dogs. As explained earlier, they survive by eating garbage and are also kept as pets by slum-dwellers.

The stray dog population is regularly increased by callous owners who abandon their pets on the street. Many irresponsible pure-breed owners also allow their pets to mate with strays, producing a large population of mix-breeds or mongrels.

Q16. What is the difference between stray dogs and mongrels?
A16. Stray is merely a legal term indicating an animal who is ownerless and homeless. It does not refer to the breed of the dog. When pure-breedsare lost or abandoned on the street by their owners, they also become strays.

A mongrel is a dog of mixed or indeterminate breed. Both the terms stray and mongrel are commonly – and erroneously – used to denote a Pariah Dog. Pariahs are a distinct breed of dog, coming under the category of primitive or aboriginal breeds. Since they are not commercially recognised, this fact is not widely known.

In India, most strays are Pariah Dogs or mongrels. Once a Pariah or mongrel gets adopted as a house-pet, it ceases to be a stray.

Q17. My building society wants to remove all the dogs from the premises and release them in another area – is that legal?
A17. No, it is absolutely illegal and punishable. Under the Bombay Municipal Corporation Act only the staff of the BMC or people authorised by them can capture stray dogs. The guidelines for dog population control approved by the Mumbai High Court in 1998 also prohibit the permanent removal of stray dogs from their original location.

Q18. Some people go around feeding stray dogs. Doesn’t that increase the stray dog problem?
A18. No. Stray dog populations are created and sustained by garbage, not by handouts from kind-hearted ladies! In fact, people who feed dogs generally get them vaccinated and neutered as well, so the population would actually decrease where dogs are being fed. However, feeding should be done in a responsible manner so that it does not cause any disturbance to the public.

Q19. Isn’t it sad that stray dogs have to eat garbage?
A19. Archaeological studies indicate that wolves started living near human settlements so that they could eat the garbage thrown outside. Dogs evolved from these wolves, and have always been scavengers. Unlike humans, they do not view garbage with disgust. In fact, even a well-fed pedigreed dog will often make trips to the dustbin when his owners aren’t looking. Of course, eating garbage has its risks, since once in a while a dog may eat something poisonous – but many strays lead long and healthy lives with no other source of food.

Q20. What should I do if I want the dogs in my area sterilised?
A20. You should contact NGOs in your city. A few NGO sites are in the links in this blog (bottom right of page).

Q21. If I want stray dogs vaccinated against rabies what should I do?
A21. Many NGOs vaccinate dogs on site, so contact them.

Q22. If I see a sick or injured dog, what should I do?
A22. This would vary from one city to another, but some nowadays have first-aid groups or helplines for animals.

Q23. Do I have to pay anything if I want any of those services?
A23. Policies vary from one NGO to another. Many Mumbai organizations provide first-aid and other services free of charge.

The street dog issue is also explained with pictures here.

Do you recognize the red canine model by the way? It's Lalee! I was accused of nepotism at the time for putting Lalee's pictures throughout the site, but what could I do? She was just the best looking INDoggy I could find!

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The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation's persecution of dogs and Lisa Warden:

This is an appropriate place to mention the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation's methods of dog control, which are both illegal and unsound and are not based on scientific understanding of canine behaviour or rabies eradication.

Many readers of this blog and Pariah Club members already know about this through Facebook and my emails. For those who don't know about it, here is the link to the petition demanding justice for the dogs and Lisa:

http://www.petitiononline.com/dogtruth/petition.html

As a result of the crisis, the corporation has now agreed to follow the laws and dog control rules and have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Animal Welfare Board of India (Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India). They have not dropped their unjustified charges against Lisa though. You can follow this case through the Facebook group

In Support of Lisa Warden