Egyptian Precedent Worrying for Stray Dogs

A court in Alexandria, Egypt, has set a precedent by ordering the government to compensate the family of a man who died after being bitten by a stray dog, saying that the government is responsible for managing the stray dogs to keep the citizens safe.

Unfortunately, the story (here) is short on details of the actual incident with no information about the actual cause of death (rabies? injuries?) or the dog involved (street dog? abandoned pet? pet on the loose?).

The onus will now be on the government to target removal of street dogs to protect themselves from further legal action regardless of whether any particular animal is a problem or not and regardless of the likely fact that most will be on the streets due to irresponsible ownership. This short-sighted judgement seems to be taking the easy way out and is not good news for the street dogs themselves. Of course the government has a role in managing a social problem such as stray dogs but it is basically being punished for not ensuring that its public are all perfect citizens. It is also a government’s responsibility to manage crime so maybe they will have to start compensating victims of burglaries.

Learn more about the lives and issue of unowned dogs in my e-book ”A Stray View” available from Bangkok Books (readable as .pdf on any computer)