There are two kinds of people in this world: dog people and not-dog people.
Dog people love dogs, considering them one of the world’s most affectionate creatures, almost like children, incapable of causing harm. They enjoy having dogs around, petting them, feeding them, and taking care of them. Many keep dogs as pets or befriend and feed strays. Dogs respond positively to these individuals, wagging their tails and showing affection. Dog people go out of their way to meet dogs, even on the road.
On the other hand, not-dog people are the opposite. They don’t care for dogs and may even be averse to them. Dogs make them scared and anxious. Barking is a nuisance, and bites can be harmful, even fatal. When not-dog people spot stray dogs, anxiety fills them, prompting a change of path to avoid that area.
Both sets of people are right in their own way. Dog people appreciate the unconditional affection dogs offer, making them excellent pets. However, dogs, when provoked or aggressive, can cause harm. They also carry rabies, a horrific, deadly disease still prevalent in India, causing 20,000-25,000 deaths annually, mostly due to stray dog bites. Even outside of rabies, packs of stray dogs have mauled little kids, injured adults, and caused various kinds of harm. The recent high-profile case was that of Parag Desai, founder of Waghbakri Tea, a Rs 2,000cr company. Parag, aged 49, died after a fall, caused as he was by chased by street dogs. Parag died because he lives in a country with one of the highest, unchecked stray dog populations in the world. There are lakhs if not millions of Indians who face anxiety, fear, and nervousness as they are walking on the street, due to stray dogs who are now rampant in many spaces.
Take the case of Mumbai’s Carter Road promenade, a rare 2-km walking and running path in otherwise cramped Mumbai. It has a great setting by the sea, but the track is now overfilled with street dogs, who roam in packs. Running is impossible, and even walkers must be careful. Not to mention plenty of people who never show up for a walk here because of the fear of dogs. Consider the hidden health costs of people who quitting their morning exercise due to the fear of stray dogs. This is happening around the country. In Delhi, Nehru Park, located in prime Chanakyapuri is probably one of the most beautiful city parks in the country. It has a specially rubberized 2.7km walking track loop, which passes through trees and greenery. A few years ago, there were probably five dogs in the park. Now, there are fifty. You cannot run. You must be careful while walking. Imagine spending tens of hundreds of crores on prime land, to construct and maintain parks, only to render them unusable because stray dogs roam the area. The dog-people may say the strays won’t do anything but ask the family of the 20,000 people who died just last year with rabies in India. Maybe they will tell you a different story? Ask the millions of walkers who carry a stick in their morning walk, or quit walking altogether, or have horror stories of dogs chasing them. Maybe you will have a different answer?
Let’s admit it. We need to do something about India’s stray dog menace. We can’t aspire to be a global power and developed country and have the largest stray dog population in the world. No developed country has stray dogs roaming around. One day, hence, if India hopes to become a developed country – they will need to go.
Which brings us to the other important question – how to ethically, humanely tackle this problem. How do we reduce and remove stray populations, without inhuman eradication or culling of one of the most affectionate animals on the planet?
There are ways to do it right. It involves vaccinations, sterilizations, adoption mechanisms, stricter pet ownership and even stricter pet abandonment laws. It’s more expensive to do this rather than indiscriminate culling, but we need to do what it takes. We also need an education campaign on how people can prevent themselves from being bitten by dogs. We also need to tell people who feel it is okay to have stray dogs about the harmful effects, not just on humans but on the strays themselves. While the stray animals may somehow get food, they do not have a decent quality of life. They are prone to disease, injury, road accidents, infections, chilly weather, hot weather, and all kinds of difficulties that come from living on the street. It isn’t as humane to subject the dog to a life on the streets as well. Letting millions of strays roam isn’t animal welfare. It’s a sign of half-measures. It is soothing one’s guilt of not removing the animals, but then not caring about what kind of a life they have remaining on the streets. Meanwhile, we create a serious danger in our public spaces, which kills tens of thousands every year and causes fear and anxiety to millions of others.
India, a rising global power, cannot have its public spaces infested with street dogs. No matter how cute or affectionate a creature is, if it has potential to cause human harm, we must do something about it. And if we truly care about street animals, we will never let them live on the streets anyway.