Subir Roy: Dog's worst friend

OFFBEAT

All of us love children. Some among us love dogs too. Some others are uncomfortable with pets and get pretty scared by dogs and cats, preferring to steer clear of them. I always loved dogs but never got to own a pet as a child. Then when I saw my children were growing up to be pretty scared of dogs, I decided we should have a dog in the house. This would help them get rid of their fear and give them a chance to take care of someone from an early age. This was good for their upbringing, I thought. Thus it was that our dog came into our lives ten years ago and has since grabbed a huge share of the family's pool of affection.

In the last few weeks Bangalore has witnessed a painful sight of man being pitted against dog. It was sparked off by the tragic case of a three year old playing outdoors being mauled to death by a pack of stray dogs. What really got people worked up was that this was the second such death. An eight year old had died under similar circumstances a few months ago. In between there were a number of incidents in which people were attacked by stray dogs.

The man versus dog battle has ended up pitting animal rights activists against large sections of society in general. There have even been local newspaper comments arguing that you can't deal with the menace of stray dogs as the law does not allow you to simply catch all the stray dogs and kill them. For this situation the animal rights activists are blamed. This when dogs have been the first animals to be domesticated and the loyalty and affection of dogs towards those who look after them far exceeds that of humans.

The menace of stray dogs and prevalence of rabies in India in which thousands die every year is a national shame. For this, everyone, including newspaper commentators, has to share the blame. You cannot eliminate rabies unless every dog is vaccinated against rabies once a year. This means accounting for them, keeping track of every one of them. If this happens there would be no stray dogs left.

When I lived in the National Media Campus in Gurgaon, a gated community of the well heeled, I proposed we adopt all the stray dogs we liked, vaccinate then and put a collar round every one of them. They would in turn keep our area free from outside strays as dogs are territorial. Nothing much happened in six years till I left the address in 2002.

Dogs are animals. They don't attack others unless they are threatened or ill. But they fight for food, particularly when they are hungry. It is easy to guess what would happen when a pack of stray dogs foraging for food spots a little child with say, a piece of bread in his hand and who runs when he is chased.

The solution to the problem can be captured in a brief paragraph. Catch all strays, put to sleep the old and ill, vaccinate and sterilise the young and healthy and put collars round their necks with date tags so that you know when to catch hold of them again for the yearly shot. If the sterilisation is effective, stray dogs will disappear in a few years.

But to make this happen you need a citizenry which knows that the buck stops with it and not the government and does not shirk its moral responsibility by trying to blame it all on animal rights activists. You also need a media which does not simply chase headlines but revisits an issue after the crisis is over to see if the right things are getting done even though public attention has shifted. Bangaloreans who take pride in the pre-eminence of their city should make it the first in the country to be rid of stray dogs.

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