India has a huge problem of stray dogs and there are 2 faces of this problem, first is if you go to feed stray dogs then you face backlash and it is even violent sometimes and the second is more dangerous where we have seen violence against dogs, they are beaten sometimes, or even thrown in the river, and there are many examples like Bengal, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chandigarh. News and videos come from these places every month. Hence we will talk about 2 things in this blog,


Why does this happen?

First of all, try to understand why this problem happens, and I am not justifying the problem but trying to see it by reaching its root cause. If you think anything is wrong or you have different opinions then please comment down below.

1. Population of stray dogs-

first of all the population of stray dogs is the root cause of this problem, before 3-4 years ago, this population was around 30-40 million, but it has reached up to 50-60 million. This means 6 crores which is a big number of stray dogs, WHO told that in 2012, 20000 people die of rabies every year and this number must have been increased in the 9 years. In A 2016 survey done in Mumbai told this thing differently, they told that number of people who died in 1993 and the 26/11 terror attacks, were less than the number of people who died due to dogs in those 20 years. Hence the problem is a big and major problem in India,

2. Rules for protecting-

 second that the rules for protecting stray dogs are very weak. If you are caught in the case for the first time then the fine is only 50 rupees and 10 to 100 rupees it caught for the second time, 3 years of jail can be done or maybe you can leave after paying the fine. Hence you should understand by the fine amount that how we care about stray dogs on the level of law.

3. Humans and violence-

The third thing is human intrinsic violence, if you remove the consequences, and then human behavior changes very quickly. A model tried to experiment with this, she said that you can do anything with me I will not retaliate at that time she was harmed with blades and many other harmful deeds were done, and the same is seen with dogs here. Most of the people who harm the dogs, know that they cannot be punished heavily, that’s why their own inside harming nature gets out even more and then do anything they want. Most of the viral videos we see are a very little percentage of the actual violence going on the dogs. It is very common in the streets of tier 2 or 3 cities and it is a very widespread problem.

4. Teen in the broken house-

Fourth is the teenagers involved in the violence against dogs and mostly these are the teenagers (I am telling from anecdotal evidence) who belong to a broken family who has seen violence in their homes and other problems and they resolve that anger in a place where they know that there would not be any retaliation and the stray dogs are the easiest target for them. That’s why this type of violence is majorly seen. You see some of videos but believe me, it is a widespread problem. If you remove the violence or retaliation then too many stray dog’s lives are not too good. They drink drainage water and eat leftover food given by people. They have many diseases and it is hard for them to live and they face also many accidents where they get injured.

How we can solve this problem?          

So, now discuss some solutions by which we can improve stray dog's lives. I am sending these solutions to you with a disclaimer, there are many problems and loopholes in implementing these solutions, hence I will be telling you those too.

1. Mass sterilization- 

First is the process of mass sterilization which means to control the population of dogs and they should be vaccinated too so that their disease must not spread to humans and it is not a new solution, it is being done but there are budget-related problems in these. Every year 3.5 crores of rupees are given by the central government and this is a very small budget to run this solution in the whole nation. This is a huge challenge  because the cost of sterilizing dogs had increased with time but the center is sticking to a decade-old estimate of Rs 445 per dog is fixed by the government. If the local bodies try to sterilize, then it is a loss for them only, hence this whole process of sterilization is trapped in bureaucratic measures and it seems nonexistent due to its slow speed. You will understand this if you will see it around yourself.

2. Dog shelter- 

The second thing is to make dog shelters. It seems good like cow shelters likewise dog shelters are made if government works on this. It can be done by making a public-private partnership and with proper marketing. But there is a small problem here by making cow shelters, the government's political motive is seen because the cow is a religious symbol in India. Dogs do not have any religious value in the major part of the country. Hence no political party comes ahead to make shelters for them and it is the same for the private entities. They cannot do anything alone and are very less amount of people care about dogs in the private entities. Hence the success of the public-private partnership is very difficult for dog shelters.

3. Adoption-

The third solution is very easy, adoption. Usually, we buy expensive dogs like- St. Bernard, German Shepherd, and these are not made for this environment as they are outsiders here. They are unnaturally crossbred so that you can pay highly for them and then keep them in an artificial environment in homes. You can avoid all this and adopt the street dogs, they are made in this environment, hence will not demand much and the unnatural breeding will stop too. But the problem is people only write about the sadness of streets on social media but mostly have foreign breed dogs at their houses. This is also a sad reality, which we would have to accept.

                  The solutions which I told you about can ease the life of dogs and these solutions are being implemented too. But the large-scale implementation is still remaining in the whole nation.