Kathmandu's Street Dogs

This video presented by Charlotte Uhlenbroek introduces the Kathmandu Animal Treatment Centre (KAT Centre) and the work they are planning to improve the street dog situation in Nepal’s capital.

I appreciate the fact that she introduces the concept of “community dogs” and states that “they fair pretty well” on the whole but feel that the overall message is a little misleading in implying is that this community approach is a fairly new reaction to an increasing population of street dogs rather than the long-standing human-dog relationship in the area. Neither does her description actually address why the population of street dogs has increased. Blaming “uncontrolled breeding” is an inadequate explanation. Mentioning that the dogs “scavenge what they can from piles of rubbish in the streets” suddenly creates a clearer picture of poor waste management in an expanding urban centre leading to an increasing street dog population which creates the ideal conditions for canine disease to flourish. In other words, waste management is the problem not the dogs themselves.

The desire to improve the overall health of the canine population is commendable but the KAT Centre’s project could ultimately end up with the loss of Kathmandu’s traditional community street dogs whilst also inadvertently producing a greater human health problem through more rotting waste or a higher rat population.

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)