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)