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)