The Great Indian Dog Show

The Deccan Chronicle has a report about an interesting dog event to be held on 15^th April called “The Great Indian Dog Show”. Its aim is to promote native Indian dogs and mongrels, and to encourage people to adopt strays rather than spend money on pure breeds. In place of the normal breed categories there will be unusual competition categories such as “the waggiest tail” and “the dog that most resembles its owner”. They hope to highlight how mixed breeds and local pariah dogs can make wonderful pets and generally do not suffer inherited genetic ailments like many breeds do.

In the report, one of the organizers also picks up on how free-ranging dogs’ behavior can reflect the treatment they receive from people: “It is a misconception that Indian dogs are dangerous. You always see people hitting them with stones and sticks, so you see why they have learned to be defensive and to bite when provoked.” I certainly believe human aggression has a significant influence on dog aggressive and mentioned it earlier in relation to dog bites in Kashmir (here).

Although I like the idea of this dog show and share the feeling that mongrels have a lot going for them as pets, the one point I disagree with is their “dream” of stray-free streets. It does partly depend on how they are defining a stray but it sounds like they are dreaming of no unowned dogs on their streets at all which to me means no pariah dogs. Pariah dogs are the native Indian village dogs that have lived unowned around people for thousands of years. It would be a mistake to just look at them as outcast mongrels and I really hope they do not turn the Indian pariah dog into just another breed. To me that’s more like a nightmare.