Health of Stray Dogs

A report about the abandonment of pet dogs in Sunderland, UK (here), highlights one significant reason why people dump their dogs: the dog is ill or injured and the owner cannot or will not pay for treatment. Although this article was specifically about one city in England this is probably a typical reason for abandoning pet dogs worldwide.

One of the commonest complaints about street dogs in countries with sizable populations is that they are so unhealthy and sorry-looking. In most urban areas the majority of street or stray dogs have come from abandonments rather than dogs born on the streets (it was estimated a few years ago, for example, that the street dog population of just over 100,000 in Bangkok was fuelled by around 40,000 annual abandonments). The artificially high densities of dogs living on a relatively poor diet with little or no healthcare produces ideal conditions for diseases and parasites to proliferate particularly if the animals arrive already in an unhealthy condition.

The main reason I want to highlight this is to compare this situation with the health of the free-living dogs in rural or village areas. In my experience these village dogs are generally much healthier than urban street dogs, which illustrates the fact that the lifestyle of being independent and unowned does not in itself produce mangy, flea-ridden dogs as many people seem to assume. Unfortunately, it is the mangy, flea-ridden animals that get noticed, which re-enforces the attitude that dogs need human owners and suffer a miserable life without one. The miserable life they have to suffer is more due to the fact that they were once owned and that ownership failed them.

Let’s put the blame for the poor condition of urban stray dogs where it belongs: on irresponsible ownership not the unowned lifestyle.

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)