Going to the dogs: Thousands are bitten and mauled by stray dogs every day as civil authorities fail to curb canine menace




You have just had a fun-filled evening with your friends, and at the end of the night one of them drops you near home. But as soon as you step out of the car and start moving towards your house, a strange fear grips you - the fear of encountering stray dogs. Sounds familiar?



'You' can be anybody. But it's unlikely you haven't witnessed the nuisance of stray dogs that has now taken on scary proportions, with the canines biting and mauling thousands of people across the country every day.



As civic bodies of various cities fail to control the dog population, the problem could turn grimmer in the coming years.



All too familiar: Nervous pedestrians prepare to run the gauntlet of street dogs in Noida

Animal rights activists, however, dismiss the threat saying dog attacks are the consequence of human aggression towards them.



At least 16 people in Delhi died of rabies contracted from dog bites in the last year. According to a survey conducted by the North Delhi Municipal Corporation, 30,608 cases of dog bites were reported from areas under its jurisdiction in 2012-2013, as against 17,634 cases the previous year.



Animal Birth Control (Dog) Rules, notified in December 2001 under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, prohibit the killing of stray dogs except in special cases, for instance when they are rabid or terminally ill. Besides, the rules provide that stray dogs can only be removed from their habitats for neutering and immunisation against rabies. But municipal officials have failed to carry out dog immunisation drives effectively.



North MCD doesn't have even one dog sterilisation centre in its jurisdiction, and 10 out of its six sterilisation mobile centres are in a state of breakdown. The corporation sterilised just 3,800 dogs last year.



"While we don't want animals to be killed unnecessarily, the precedence in this context has to be given to the lives of humans not dogs," said Leader of the Opposition (north corporation) Mukesh Goel.



Delhi has a stray dog population of 2.75 lakh. The canine problem is not limited to the national Capital. A large number of dog attacks are reported from other parts of the country, too. On April 25, a pack of stray dogs attacked, without any provocation, a group of people at a bus depot in Mumbai's Govandi area. Fourteen out of the 15 victims bitten by dogs were children in the age group of three to eight years.



In a shocking incident, a stray dog was spotted holding a newborn girl from its jaws near a government hospital in Madhya Pradesh's Ashok Nagar district. Later, it was found that she had suffered serious injuries on her head and arms.



Dog lovers, though, don't waste a moment standing in its defence.



"It is like a chain reaction: you turn hostile towards the dogs and harm them, and they become aggressive towards other passersby who don't intend to harm them," said Anjali Sharma, member and legal advisor of the Animal Welfare Board of India. She said the sterilisation of dogs could be a solution.

A growing problem: Stray dogs spotted outside a canteen in Jawaharlal Nehru University







