Stray Dog Shipments to Sofia

The Mayor of Sofia has claimed that “new shipments” of stray dogs dumped on the streets are sabotaging the Bulgarian capital’s attempts to solve the stray dog problem (report here). He says that new packs of well-bred, well-fed dogs keep turning up in different parts of the city overnight and that the suspicion is that the dogs are being brought in from other municipalities.

Whether this is true or not my suggestion would be to keep a close eye on the activities of the dog breeders who seem to be a significant source of abandoned dogs in other parts of the world. 

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)

Western Reaction to Thai Street Dog Poisonings

The expat residents of Pattaya in Thailand do not paint themselves in a good light here. The story pertains to the poisoning of six street dogs apparently for persistently defecating in a potato field. This was probably done by a Thai man but then at the end of the story, which makes it clear that the other Thai residents do not share this man’s dislike for the dogs, come the obnoxious comments from callous expats happy to see the dogs gone.

These comments are full of the stereotypical views of “snarling, mange-ridden” strays and most are openly supportive of the poisoner, although there are one or two more moderate voices saying that the killing should be more humane.  The comments are also full of the western belief that all dogs should be owned and have no place wandering the streets, which is certainly not the case in Thai culture. Two posters even agree with such killing and then support their views by complaining about the noise from pet dogs.

The poisoner will probably face some punishment for the deed, albeit relatively minor, but the western expats will carry on freely espousing their vitriolic, inhumane and ignorant opinions.

More and more I see that the problem I write about is human not canine and that there is so much work to do.

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)

Bangalore's Garbage Problem

The Business Standard has published a good article about Bangalore’s garbage problem that is such a significant part of the stray dog story throughout India. The article paints a picture of rapid, uncontrolled development fuelled by the great success of the high-tech industry, but with greater wealth has come more garbage and no adequate systems for dealing with it. Apparently, the new wealth has also brought an indifferent attitude far removed from the social responsibility that more traditional community living engenders.

Informal dumping and burning within the city and in the nearby rural areas has caused air and water pollution as well as supporting increasing populations of street dogs, pigs, rats and mosquitoes. The situation is becoming desperate with local residents blocking garbage trucks from dumping in their area and industrial action by garbage workers.

It seems fair to say that Bangalore’s waste management is a mess.

The article ends on a tentatively optimistic note of what could be achieved if the efforts of the garbage pickers who earn a meagre living from collecting recyclable waste could be encouraged, together with other projects that aim to put organic waste to better use. But until that happens there will be continual complaints and articles about the “stray dog menace” in Bangalore.

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)

Los Angeles Bans Commercially-Bred Dog Sales

Los Angeles City Council has just made it illegal for pet shops to sell dogs and cats from commercial breeders (report here). The shops will now be reliant on selling stray animals from shelters.

This is very good news. In terms of the local problem it may be a small step and the trade in commercially-bred dogs can easily move just outside the city boundaries but this is the first time anywhere in the world that I have heard of any real move against the industry that fuels the stray dog problem.

At present, the aim of the commercial breeders seems to be to produce as many fluffed-up, adorable puppies as they can without considering the animal’s upbringing in terms of good preparation for being a pet, and then to encourage as many impulse buys as possible with no consideration given to the suitability of the buyer. Worldwide this is a major cause of pet dog abandonment with the owner ill-prepared for the responsibility and the dog ill-prepared for the lifestyle. Then there is the question of what happens to the unsold puppies, which in some cases are known to be simply abandoned at a very young age.

So, well done Los Angeles. Let’s hope other places follow their lead unless the pet dog trade makes serious efforts to improve itself. 

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 Grand Prix

Ahead of the Indian grand prix race on Sunday, organisers have promised that there will not be a repeat of last year’s problem when stray dogs wandered onto the track during the practice session (full report here).

All possible entry points have been sealed with dog-catching teams at the ready, but probably the biggest reason to be confident is that this year there are no construction teams camping and cooking on site which is what attracted the dogs last year.

Dogs don’t care about formula one unless it’s something edible.

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)

Positive Spin on India’s Stray Dogs

I always appreciate an article that includes putting a more positive spin on the stray dog story. Here is (yet another) news piece about Indian street dogs which includes the following quote:

“People do not see the positive aspect of having stray dogs, he says. They stop chain-snatching and other robbery on the streets. Because of them, the organic garbage in the dustbins does not rot.”

Communal security alerts and waste disposal units.

Also included is one worker’s observation that on investigating reports of dog bites he routinely finds that “the incidences occurred because the people had provoked the dogs”.

This article is mainly about the work of animal welfare organisations in providing rescue and adoption services plus spaying and neutering. But unfortunately, it has one big omission in that it does not cover the role of pet dogs in the problem.

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)

Reaction To Article About India’s Street Dogs

The article I commented on yesterday about Indian street dogs has drawn a stronger protest from animal welfare workers (see their petition here). They believe that the article was “very misguided and biased” being “misleading to the Indian public” and perpetuating “undue public fear for the street dog”. I agree with their stance but as I wrote yesterday, I think this article was actually better than most published about Indian street dogs.

They make the point, as I did, that a high proportion of bites are from pets not street dogs and that any aggression from street dogs typically comes out of fear following provocation by people. Thus, instilling fear in people through articles such as this actually makes the situation worse by increasing the chances of any encounter becoming a confrontation. They also highlight the fact that “many street dogs are viewed as respectful community dogs”.

The one point where I disagree with them is the use of “India’s native breed” and “Indian’s indigenous breed”. I suspect this is the western attitude creeping in but to me the local village or community dogs should not really be considered a “breed” in the sense that they were not created through deliberate selective breeding by people. It may not seem like an important point but I believe the emphasis should be on the lifestyle as unowned, free-ranging animals. Once they become labelled as a breed then they are more likely to be viewed as stray pets in need of homes, which is not the case at all. Just call them native or indigenous 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)

Indian Stray Dog Problem Must Include Pets

If not entirely balanced (to my view), this article, which I have seen published in several places, does at least cover most of the points that should be covered when discussing stray dogs and India.

It begins in typical fashion describing the “menace” of the street dogs and painting a picture of a human population under siege. However, it does then switch to a less provocative style and make the following points that are too often omitted from such articles:

1.     “Dogs essentially started out as scavengers,” which “evolved to hang around people rather than to be useful to them” and that this remains the dominant relationship in India;

2.     “India’s burgeoning middle class has begun to adopt Western notions of pet ownership,” but “many pedigreed dogs end up on the street, the castoffs of unsuccessful breeders or owners who tire of the experiment”;

3.     These dogs largely survive by scavenging on “ubiquitous mounds of garbage”;

4.     Controlling the dogs without dealing with the garbage could be dangerous as rats would replace them;

5.     “People really don’t want us to take the street dogs away, particularly in poor areas”.

They could have added the point that ex-pets, having been socialised to people in a way that the native pariah dogs have not, are far more likely to show aggression towards people. And also the problem that I have noticed in Thailand that the middle class pet owners do not understand the difference between a pet dog and a pariah or village dog and thereby think it is acceptable to allow their pet to roam the streets or even abandon it there.

So, what we are left with is the fact that there is a real stray dog problem fuelled by poor waste management and an irresponsible pet dog industry but even so the strays are still valued by sections of society. As part of its conclusions this article does say that garbage management has to be part of the solution but why is the pet dog industry (breeders and owners), which is such a large part of the problem, continually omitted from the possible solutions?

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 Dogs and Vultures

Across south Asia there have been dramatic and drastic declines in the populations of vultures over the last few years, which according to one report is a significant reason for the increase in the stray dog population in Bangalore (see here). In the case of one vulture species the decline has been 99.9% and this means that the dogs no longer have competition for the “excess garbage” dumped on the streets.

The main cause for the vultures’ decline has been identified as two veterinary drugs, diclofenac and aceclofenac, which are toxic to any birds that feed on carcass remains from animals that were treated with the drugs. This avoidable impact on these bird populations is sad and is having repercussions for the residents of Bangalore and presumably other cities as well but let’s not forget that the underlying problem with the stray dog population is one of waste management.

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)

Indian City Aiming for Stray Dog-Free Streets

A report in The Times of India on the stray dog “menace” in Patiala contains the quote, “We want Patiala to be the First Stray Dog Free City of India”. This comes from a group called The Society for People's Welfare & Awareness Patiala.

I really hope they don’t succeed as this would mean destroying an element of culture that has been around since long before pet dogs became the vogue.

An internet search on “Patiala dogs” highlights the fact that dog shows and the pet dog trade is big business in Patiala with one breeder even advertising “wholesale prices”. This makes me suspicious. How much of this “stray dog menace” is actually due to pets on the loose and abandoned pets rather than the indigenous street dogs who always get the blame? Exactly what happens to all those puppies that do not sell when they are young and cute?

Rather than constantly calling for the authorities to take action on the street dogs perhaps a greater focus should be on the dealers and owners of pet dogs. If they are the root of the problem then this has to be the long-term solution.

The other possibility that would explain the apparent increase in dogs is that, as elsewhere in India, the city has a waste management problem.

Either way the issue seems to be human behaviour not dog behaviour.

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)

“Rescued” from the Thai Dog Meat Trade

According to this article in the Bangkok Post and this YouTube video, the fate of many dogs “saved” from the dog meat trade in the northeast of the country is hardly improved after being rescued. The majority end up dying or disappearing or living in atrocious conditions. Still with some questions unanswered, the conclusion is that despite well-meaning efforts from volunteers and the authorities there is such a lack of funding that the almost 2,000 dogs in the cases investigated had virtually no chance even after rescue.

I commend the chief investigator, John Keeble, for his efforts to understand the trade and for exposing the associated problems post-rescue but I don’t always agree with the detail such as the suggestion that the trade has moved away from stray dogs to stolen pets. From what was shown here, I feel that this is perhaps jumping to conclusions for two reasons. One is that the apparent friendliness and comfort around people that made them believe that even the collarless dogs were ex-pets could just as easily come from village dogs who have a close relationship to people without being owned. These dogs are not stray and neither are they pets. Secondly, there is a continuing problem with pet abandonment in Thailand, so even if a dog is an ex-pet it does not necessarily mean it was stolen or that there is a grieving owner somewhere. The fact that only one of these dogs was ever reunited with its owner was perhaps partly because many ex-owners were not interested in looking.

Although I support the need for work like this, I still have an uneasy feeling that underlying it all is the westerner’s expectation that everybody should have the same attitude towards dogs and that following the British and American model unowned dogs should not exist. 

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)

Test for Aggressive Street Dogs in Sofia

To combat the problem of aggressive unowned dogs on the streets of Sofia, a method for assessing canine aggression applicable to dogs living in the street has been worked out through international consultation (see report by Animal Rescue Sofia). The hope is to make the streets a safer place without the unnecessary removal and euthanasia of street dogs that do not cause a problem but were the subject of unsubstantiated allegations from people with a dislike of strays.

This sounds like a very good step in the right direction but, unfortunately, I have not yet been able to see the details of the 7-step test, which I’m sure has potential to benefit many other cities worldwide. 

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)

Turkish Stray Dogs “Natural Habitat”

Protests have been triggered in the streets of Istanbul (see here) following proposals to change animal welfare laws that include the vague idea of “natural habitat parks” to be used when animal shelters become full. The fears are that they would be little more than concentration camps and that all unowned dogs would be rounded up and dumped into them. The vociferous protests suggest that the legislators may have misread Turkish society’s attitude to unowned dogs.

To me, the irony is that the streets already are a dog’s “natural habitat”.

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)

A Problem with the Stray Dog Contraceptive Campaign

A non-governmental organisation called “600 Million Stray Dogs Need You” is running a “global project to end more animal suffering and death than any project in history”. The aim is to develop an oral contraceptive for dogs that would be used to “free virtually every humane society world wide of their most expensive problem: animal overpopulation”.  

This campaign is very heavy on emotional rhetoric but short on real detail and explanation. The idea that 600 million stray dogs are living a life of suffering in deplorable conditions and are in imminent risk of a violent death at the hands of people is a gross exaggeration to support their project but to me ultimately damages their credibility.

Many unowned dogs do fit their view and would benefit from our help but as I keep arguing many other unowned dogs are not in any sense stray, they do not cause a problem, they have apparently very fulfilling lives and should be left exactly as they are. To lump them all together as strays is wrong and a very western attitude.

This campaign tries to give the impression that this magic pill can solve the problem by itself without mentioning the fact that it would have zero effective on the pet abandonment which fuels the increase in strays in the first place nor the fact that in many cities the underlying problem is waste management and without stray dogs to eat the waste they would just be replaced by rats or truly fetid streets.

I absolutely agree that such an oral contraceptive would be an extremely useful tool in many situations but absolutely disagree with their disingenuous simplification of the problem to suit their own agenda.

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)

Falling into the Cultural Attitude Trap

A recent opinion piece in Thailand’s The Nation newspaper entitled “Eat Dogs, Reduce Disease” defended the practice of eating dogs in that part of the world with the point that “the cultural taboo against eating dogs is largely of European origin”.

I have a lot of sympathy with this view as there are clear differences in cultural attitudes towards dogs, and the western view is very often expressed too forcefully and too arrogantly. For many people like me the issue is not so much the actual eating but the extremely cruel treatment that usual goes with the practice.

However, the author, having derided this imposition of western attitude, then falls into his own trap with the statement, “In Thailand there are millions of feral dogs that are not fed, vaccinated or cared for”. These “feral” dogs fall into two categories: abandoned pets that need our help and village dogs that have been living the unowned, free-ranging lifestyle with a close relationship to the human residents since long before westerners imposed pets dogs as the ideal. Neither of these groups are feral in that they typically do get deliberate support from the human population and they do not avoid human contact. In the case of the latter group they are also already receiving all the care they require.

Apparently, if the author had his way then the indigenous cultural tradition of Thailand’s village dogs would disappear.

I totally agree with his penultimate sentence:“One must ask whether Westerners should be imposing their cultural idiosyncrasies on Southeast Asians.” I just wish he would follow his own advice.

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)

Pets to Blame in Sarawak

This is more about a dog show in Sarawak but I was pleased to see an article clearly blaming pets on the loose for the stray dog problems of biting, bin-raiding and traffic nuisance. I’m sure there must be unowned street dogs there but they are not specifically mentioned as a problem (keep your heads down guys!).

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 Adoption in Project Chile

In the Chilean city of Antofagasta an animal welfare organisation, Ecoalberque Canino, is initiating a project to catch, clean-up and put up for adoption abandoned pet dogs straying around the area (see here for more detail).

In itself this is not big news as many groups around the world have run similar projects. I just wanted to post this one as an example because, although it is a seemingly well-planned project, which includes offering to give people’s pets a free “sanitizing bath”, I suspect their problem will be maintaining the momentum after the initial publicity has died down. Interest always wanes.

Another potential problem with these projects is that they do not necessarily address the reasons behind the pet dog abandonment and thereby risk just adding to the problem via more short-term pets. The use of micro-chipping in this case may be a partial solution.

Although I do not know this city, I also wonder whether all of these dogs that will be rounded up do actually need saving. It may well be that many are actually already enjoying a reasonable life without causing any problems. For many unowned dogs the street is a perfectly acceptable home but no welfare project that I have come across seriously takes this into consideration.

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 Puppy Boom in Hyderabad

Here is an article in The Hindu highlighting a recent spurt in the births of stray dog puppies, which is apparently giving the local residents “goose-bumps”. The usual concerns about the “dog menace” are covered as are the inadequate efforts on the part of the authorities, but sadly the question of why there is such a puppy boom is not addressed.

A puppy boom basically means the stray dogs are well-fed, which means there is a good food source, which means, as usual, they have a waste disposal problem. This is the real underlying issue and yet unfortunately this aspect is not mentioned in article, which does not bode well for the chances of them solving the problem.

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)

Feral Dog Study

Here is a link to the full text of one of the few research studies conducted on feral dogs. It’s an old study, originally published in 1995 but still an interesting, although academic, read.

Given the looseness with which the term is usually used I particularly like their clear definition of what they consider a feral dog to be: “those dogs living in a wild state with no food and shelter intentionally provided by humans, and showing a continuous and strong avoidance of direct human contacts”. This study was conducted in Italy and what strikes me is that under this definition I doubt that a country such as Thailand where I live has any feral dogs at all. This highlights a very real difference in the western and eastern attitudes to free-ranging dogs. As a generality, in eastern (or perhaps that should be tropical) cultures free-ranging, unowned dogs are accepted as a normal and inclusive part of society and therefore do not reach this feral state. The western (temperate) attitude is that all dogs should be owned so any free-ranging dogs are excluded from society and inadvertently pushed into the feral lifestyle.

The study’s conclusions include that “feral dogs are not reproductively self-sustaining”, “suffer from high rates of juvenile mortality” and “depend indirectly upon humans for food”. The implication is that this particular population would disappear if not fuelled by abandoned pets, which is apparently a quite different situation to that in Australia at present where a seemingly prospering feral dog population is causing increasing concerns (see my earlier post here).

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)