Objecting to Change in Turkey’s Street Dog Policy

The International Fund for Animal Welfare has published a good article (here) about a planned change in Turkey’s animal welfare legislation.

In summary, they object to the proposal to move away from capture-neuter-vaccinate-return (CNVR) to capture-neuter-vaccinate-and-then-permanently-hold-in-shelters, with concerns about what this would do for the animals’ welfare. They argue that the old laws were not given a chance as the implementation and enforcement were inadequate, which is a common story across many countries.

What I particularly like about the author’s approach in this article is the way she shifts the argument away from dealing with the stray dogs towards focusing on the underlying problem of where the dogs come from in the first place. Pointing out that even with good implementation and enforcement, CNVR could never be a long-term solution on its own “in a country where roaming dogs come to be on the street for a variety of reasons”.

This backs up my belief that the key is to tackle people’s behaviour more than the dogs.

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)

Dealing with Srinagar’s Stray Dogs not People

Here is a video report about the efforts to catch and deal with the estimated 91,000 stray dogs in the city of Srinagar in Indian Kashmir. The emphasis is on the actual catching process with nets plus the residents’ wish to get rid of the dogs. The video focuses a lot on the problem of aggressive dogs and fear in the local people but, to my eye, it actually shows more about aggressive people and fearful dogs. I believe that the behaviour of a population of stray dogs usually reflects how they are treated by the human population. Aggressive people will most likely produce fearful, aggressive dogs.

As typical with similar reports (and apparently the management strategy itself), the underlying causes behind the dog problem are not addressed. Most of the dogs shown are clearly not the native pariah dogs so where did they come from and why have they increased to this number? I don’t know enough about the situation there to be sure but suspect pet abandonment and poor waste management to be the other significant causes behind the problem together with a prevailing hostile attitude towards the dogs. As ever, this suggests that the real problem is with human behaviour more than dog behaviour.

The other aspect that suggests they are not on the right track for a lasting solution is the clearly widespread attitude that the responsibility for the problem lies with the authorities not the community. It seems to me that human communities that have “delegated” their social responsibility to a higher bureaucratic representative are much more likely to have a problem with stray dogs.

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)

Stray Dog Discovers Body

Here is a gruesome story from Muskogee, Oklahoma, where a badly decomposed body was discovered in a wooded area beside a local park thanks to a stray dog running down the road carrying a bone which it eventually dropped in the street and turned out to be from a human arm.

Dog Poisoning in Moscow

There have been several reports recently about the illegal poisoning of dogs in Moscow’s parks with this article providing the fullest details that I have seen so far.

Poisoned bait, such as meatballs, is being deliberately left in public parks for dogs to eat. The culprits are called “dog hunters” and, according to this article, it is the desire to kill animals rather than a particular dislike of stray dogs that motivates them. Thus, their actions are indiscriminate and have led to the deaths of both strays and pets.

An estimated 10 dogs are dying from such poisoning every month in Moscow but it is also occurring in other cities in Russia and Ukraine and the actual figure is likely to be higher as deaths of stray dogs will not always be discovered or reported.

Russia has laws against such animal cruelty but the punishments are “weak” and enforcement is rare to the extent that these “dog hunters act with almost total impunity”. They even have their own social networks for support and ideas.

So, to add to the problems faced by stray dogs they are now being targeted by a particularly cruel form of sport hunting whereby they “invariably suffer a very painful death, which only comes after several minutes of torture”.

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)

Dog Trafficking in Northeast India

According to this article smuggling of stray dogs between the northeast Indian state of Tripura and the adjacent Nagaland and Mizoram states where they are a favored meat is a "new phenomenon". So far this year six people have been arrested in two separate incidences after they were caught smuggling stray dogs tied up in sacks.

Puerto Rico Stray Dog Insights

I have seen several reports talking about the problem of stray dogs or “satos” in Puerto Rico which has become so severe that there is a beach now commonly known as “Dead Dog Beach”. Here is one particularly good article by Cesar Millan (of “The Dog Whisperer” fame) reviewing a documentary on the problem with a couple of particularly interesting insights.

Firstly, as in many other places, the finger of blame is pointed at backyard breeders out to make a quick profit from the mass production of puppies. Often these farmed animals lack the upbringing that would turn them into good pets and they end up getting abandoned by their new owners. However, even more significantly the “surplus” puppies, those that do not sell immediately, get dumped by the breeders directly, sometimes even before they are weaned giving them virtually no chance of survival. In terms of numbers of abandoned dogs this seems to be by far the biggest problem in Puerto Rico. It may well also be happening in other countries but does not get the same attention as abandonment by pet owners.

Secondly, he highlights how the macho attitude of many Latino men results in a strong reluctance to neuter their pet dogs for the perceived loss of masculinity. Thus, the population of potential breeders is kept higher than necessary and the chances of unwanted puppies becomes greater.

Understanding such subtleties in the mechanisms that lead to stray dog problems can only be a good thing and help us see beyond the standard arguments of how to deal with the stray dogs themselves. We should stop focusing on the strays as the problem. The problem is our behaviour.