Street dog free Bangalore – looking ahead
The anger is there for all to see & hear. It is very possible that we are going to shortly have a scenario where there are not going to be any stray dogs out on the road. I paused at that thought. What does that mean?
Firstly, a sense of relief perhaps that while our children played hide & seek there are no dogs lurking in the alleys.
Then it means that we will not get a chance to blame the barking dogs for not getting sleep in the night. It means that the beggar who gets back ‘home’ with an assortment of food collected from numerous people will have to eat his meal alone. It means that we will no longer see a lady on her evening walk talk to some dog lazing around, brush him up & make him wag its tail. It means that we will never experience those innocent-funny-cute little moments when a stray dog follow us without reason & we regularly turn around to check if it’s still behind us & why & whether we should give it some food or just walk. Will we ever be able to pick up a puppy from the road & take it home? What will happen to all the left over food after today’s dinner, how will that be disposed.
Yes of course it also means that car owners will not have to look under their cars to see if there is a dog lying there before they step inside & drive away & all these call center guys going back home in the night can worry about their targets & performance instead of dog bites & injections. Old & young alike can step out for the morning walk or jog & be able to do that. And when we walk our Tommy or Busky or Casper or Rambo the only dog they get to see will be Bouncer or Apu or Bushy.
In today’s world of ‘flash news’ journalism everybody gets a hearing. If it’s a convict he is asked why he did what he did. If it’s a politician making personal attacks at someone he is asked why he did it. If a starlet decides to kiss on screen she is asked why & if she doesn’t she is asked why. Unfortunately we cannot ask the dogs why they did what they did and also of course what they think about all the culling threats that is being made to them & what they plan to do about it all.
It is unfortunate that the street dogs which co existed with us humans have to be talked about, written about in the manner in which it has been over the last few days. A street dog free Bangalore is definitely a step forward for the Bangalore on the move.
Bangalore today is anyway not what it used to be and without the street dogs it will be more so.
Once again there is public hysteria over stray dogs. This time a four year old boy was mauled to death by a pack of 15 dogs, so the papers say.
What was a four year old boy doing unsupervised outside his home? Where were his parents? How can anyone allow a child so young to be outside with no one apparently there. Reports say that he was playing, if so, why were a bunch of very young children playing with no adult around? Anything can happen, children can get injured, a vehicle can hit them …anything….we will never know the truth. No pack of dogs are going to identify a human child , march up and attack him. There must have been some provocation. Either this child walked up to them while they were eating, or else, taught by adults, shooed and booed them, leading to the attack. Ever so often, adults teach children to throw stones at dogs, hit them, during Diwali, they tie crackers to their tail and laugh when the dog howls on pain. So why wont a dog retaliate? Any species will attack if a threat is perceived. Are we not culling over six hundred dogs weekly as a knee jerk reaction? Culling thousands, by that reckoning, of healthy, friendly dogs.
As for the media, all they want is a sensational story. Lorry drivers kill people everyday. How boring. Not worth news. Not worth creating a sensation over. Makes no political sense either. After all, politicians depend so much on lorry drivers -for transport of their ill gotten stuff, for votes, for so much more I am sure. Dogs are not vote banks.
How about the drunken driver who mowed down three people yesterday? Lets go kill him and all other drunkards.
Does anyone remember the stray dog who saved a 5 year old boy from being swept away by the Tsunami by dragging him several hundred meters to safety?
Does anyone know that there is a team of stray dogs who are taken to special schools and give therapy to the disabled children? The first words ever an autistic child spoke after these dogs interacted with him was the name of one of them “Charlie”.
Besides there is no such thing as a man eating dog. They are not hunting humans to eat. This is an instance of the dog-human interaction gone badly wrong and actions by humans usually children who are less aware of the potential dangers in their environment and should have not been left to wander unsupervised ( not to forget that there are cannibalistic pedophiles around!).
If you do want to wipe out the entire canine race, you might want to remember the experience of the Chinese in the days of the Great Leap Forward , who wiped out sparrows because they pilfered grains from the crops. For one year bonus harvests were reaped. For the rest of the decade , locusts multiplied unchecked by their predator , the sparrow, and the resulting famine killed millions.
Actions have consequences, and humanity does not live in a plastic bubble. For better or worse, we are the caretakers of this planet. We need to take the long view and find ways to deal with so called stray, or rather indigenous dogs in ways that are sustainable and mutually beneficial rather than resorting to knee jerk methods with dubious concequences.
Can we do something about protesting against the mindless killing of stray dogs?
Good post giving different perspectives.
There is no doubt that the dog attacks on children is a very serious tragedy of highest magnitude, must be investigated in depth to find what’s the reason. So far we’ve never known such cases for so many years.
However I think the way we’re reacting is very inhumane and rash. I esp agree with Yasmine’s comments…
As for the media, all they want is a sensational story. Lorry drivers kill people everyday. How boring. Not worth news. Not worth creating a sensation over.
This is so unfortunate that in the same page I see a drunken man kills 3, and the follow up on the kids death saying all dogs have to be killed. Why not completely eradicate drinking when drinking causes so many deaths?
But killing all dogs is like saying if there was another species on the planet higher than humans, then they’d exterminate all humans based on the likes of Osama Bin Laden.
The height of it was a half page full of photographs by Deccan Herald showing 3 dogs “attacking a cow” and in none of those photographs the dogs had any physical contact with the cow, they were just barking at it, but the article made them look like some wolves from the jungle which were going to kill the cow and eat it or something which was totally ridiculous.
The killing of all dogs isn’t without other repercussions. These other repercussions are highlighted in William Blake’s poem… Auguries of Innocence:
A horse misused upon the road
Calls to heaven for human blood.
Each outcry of the hunted hare
A fibre from the brain does tear.
Similarly the cries of any indiscriminate mass killing of innocent dogs will not go unheard, and unfortunately repercussions will be borne by all of us for the ignorance of a few.
to sushruta:
information is the key. educating the public about the importance of sterilisation and vaccinations of the street dogs is the solution. printing flyers..or even hand written flyers will do…anything that, in effect, condemns the knee jerk reactions of the irrational public against stray dogs…leave them around..or at your local coffee shop or neighbourhood shop. write to times of india or deccan herald. if you have any contacts in the media, please do not hesitate to exploit your connections.
please talk about it whenever and wherever you can. do not be embarassed(even if the dog haters taunt you/try to put you down)…always..ALWAYS challenge irrational and emotional justifications for mindless cruelty against animals.
when you bring attention to this cruelty against animals, you may not be able to convert animal haters, but you might arouse those who are sitting on the fence because they might assume wrongly that nothing can be mobilised..strength is, afterall, in numbers. maybe when you will reach out to ten people, one of them might act. and that one person may make all the difference. or at least, make a difference.
I am personally not a dog hater and I stand by the fact that we need to stop cruelty to animals.
However I cannot reconcile with the fact that we can let stray dogs multiply and attack pedestrians. The 4 year kid who was attacked, might have been unsupervised. However, being an adult, the thought of catching a dog’s attention by jogging or even walk1ing near it on the street is a terrifying thought! Everytime I pass a stray dog, I have to quietly pass and pray that I go unnoticed and save myself the trouble of being bitten by a dog!!
But what the heck! Can’t I shoo away a dog by pointing a stone towards it when it is all ready to attack me for no fault of mine?? OR be afraid of an ‘animal rights activist’ catching me red-handed and filing a police complaint against me?
I think if people are fighting for animal rights, they also need to find a way to stop stray dogs from attacking people!
We need to find a solution to this problem and possibly try to follow methods like some developed countries that have laws to protect animals and the same time protect people from getting attacked by these animals!!
I am personally not a dog hater and I stand by the fact that we need to stop cruelty to animals.
However I cannot reconcile with the fact that we can let stray dogs multiply and attack pedestrians. The 4 year kid who was attacked, might have been unsupervised. However, being an adult, the thought of catching a dog’s attention by jogging or even walk1ing near it on the street is a terrifying thought! Everytime I pass a stray dog, I have to quietly pass and pray that I go unnoticed and save myself the trouble of being bitten by a dog!!
But what the heck! Can’t I shoo away a dog by pointing a stone towards it when it is all ready to attack me for no fault of mine?? OR be afraid of an ‘animal rights activist’ catching me red-handed and filing a police complaint against me?
I think if people are fighting for animal rights, they also need to find a way to stop stray dogs from attacking people!
We need to find a solution to this problem and possibly try to follow methods like some developed countries that have laws to protect animals and the same time protect people from getting attacked by these animals!!
The large population of street dogs in Bangalore are not roaming nomads. I see the same dogs in the same places each day. Where I am staying, the dogs all seem pretty well socialized.
Besides the fact that killing 30,000 of mans best friend because of the actions of a few is wrong, I don’t think it’s the best solution.
Dogs learn from observing each other. They learn how to act around humans, road traffic, etc from each other. Dogs have culture and if you kill the whole population then the dogs that will replace them (there will be more!) are going to have to start from scratch. I would suggest more dog bites, more road accidents, etc.
– Mike
Do you have a child??? Will you fel the same way if a pack of dogs attacked it??! That is the problem with all “animal lovers” — u see animals being culled as a bigger crime than little children being mauled to death!
Nobody considers dogs life to be more valueable than human life. So many cows on our roads lead to accidents, does that mean we should not start killing cows indiscriminatley! Why do we always have to react emotionally like saying that since 2 kids were attacked by some dogs so lets now kill all the dogs! Dog population needs to be controleld through Animal Birth control and Municipal corporation in Banaglore should be held accountable too for growing garbage bins where these street dogs subsist.
http://gasharma.blogspot.com/2007/03/dogs-life-and-open-manholes.html
the inhumane ways in which these dogs are being killed is vile and disgusting
our freaking government is full of shit
just cuz one kid got attacked, how dare WE as HUMANS kill all the bloody dogs of the city – VIA METHODS OF ELECTROCUTION AND TORTURE?
fuck you all man.
Man its total insanity, the way these little creatures are being done away with… and by the way dogs do not bite till provoked very badly …. the child being mauled was an extreme unfortunate incident … but then does society deal with bullies, school teachers who dish out corporal punishment to the worst order, thugs the same way …. no way , we cowards worship them …. and when it comes to dogs, the educated, self righteous citizens in their half baked or non exsitent intelligence support the way these little creatures are put to a painful end … just imagine some of these people work with us, teach us or worse lead us … how sadistic can they be … no wonder compassion is non existent
By the way … to those uninitiated, I have had seventeen stray dogs for over 10 years at home and not once has a person been mauled, worse attacked by any of them… on the contrary the have guarded us with their lives and a very special one saved us from a snake attack by giving up her own life… they are little children too
I have not heard of any dog pelting stones, pulling a childs hair or ears or kicking a child …
And by the way … may all you undoggy people go to dog heaven …
this dhananjay couple are suffering from a serious mental problem. their behaviour is a hallmark of the ‘PHATTU’indian mentality.whatever they cant understand or anything that isnt useful foe them, they condemn.these rascals dont care a shit about any damn ragpickers child living or dead. all they want is a bit of filthy limelight and they are incapable of doing anything constructive to gain it.who the hell are they to decide where dogs should live and shouldnt?
the fact is Hinjras like these should be sent to the pluto where they con live in a cold icy world free from kids and dogs and all other animals. the earth cant accommodate them anymore.
I am from New Delhi and have been hearing about the various goings ons in Bangalore,regarding the mass Killing of the Stray Dogs and the reasons that have led to this incident. The death of a child due to a stray dog bite, for which all the stray dogs in Bangalore had to pay.
Incidentally there was also an incident in Bangalore, where a young boy died in his school premises because of carelessness of the school authorities . Some construction was going on in the school and the boy died because a brick fell on his head, carelessness by a construction worker.Going by this logic,all school authorities, construction workers and the masons should be rounded up and killed. Should it?
Its so very easy to pour personal vendetta on dumb animals.They are such easy targets, aren’t they. I will not beat around the bush anymore. This incident was used As an excuse to kills the dumb animals, something probably the authorities have wanted to do for a long time, rules and regulations notwithstanding.
Well! no one has escaped the law of nature or the divine hand of the Almighty.I assure you, Bangalore will pay for this heinous crime as every action has an equal and sometimes not so pleasant reaction.
People will really have to pay for this inhuman act….These poor animals are an easy pray to such people and people have found out an execuse to get rid of them….As said by many people I would also say the same thing that Bangalore will have to pay for this….One who loves God loves his creation too….All living creatures have a right to live and we dont have a right to kill…..We are not God…..And how dare the government support this….
It is very sad that the society as a whole is completely divided between the murder-ers and the discussion-ists. By writing this blog, I am conforming to the rules of the discussion-ists. We as a tribe are very vociferous and don’t give in to the other parties’ point of reasoning till the end. But that is about all that we are capable of. The stray dogs are not the menace. Their shocking numbers are. The increased density of their population in urban areas is what is causing such incidents. We don’t provide enough playing areas to the children to play without fear. All playgrounds are converted into ornamental parks. Thereby beautifying the area and restricting the entry of any disturbances to the sanctorum so created. This leads to the children being forced out of the secure areas and committing them to the lanes and by lanes for fun and play. The overflowing garbage and littered roads and adjoining areas where the kids end up playing are within easy access to the stray dogs. The behavior of one species to another changes ferociously, since they vie for the limited space available. The authorities claim lots of grants and loads of the taxpayers’ money for the purposes of the civic maintenance of the city and somehow end up doing nothing at all, yet spending the money on things unknown. Either that or the budget allocation is totally lopsided. Otherwise how is it that the manholes and drains remain uncovered and filthy and strewn with garbage through the year? The desilting of the drains never physically takes place although you can make out telltale signs (somewhat deliberately) of the desilting process. The silt is usually collected and placed conveniently right next to the drains so that it ends up back from where it had been removed. The illegal abattoirs function openly and almost open to the extent that they are of easy access to the flies and all dirt and microbes. With no obvious garbage disposal system in place, more so for these illegal shops, since they are supposed to be ‘illegal’ (how come they still exist?) there is nothing done to the garbage they provide the city roads and back alleys with. This garbage is a delightful attraction to the stray dogs. The stray dog community is growing quite like the country’s human one. Unstopped and uninhibited. A lot of money is spent on limiting their numbers and although a lot of NGOs and animal activists pitch in with their efforts, nothing seems to be getting achieved, neither jointly nor on individual accounts. Delhi, the capital city of the country is in no better shape. I can say so personally, living in it. The stray dog problem exists well in the city as well. But somehow it is actually nice to find the mutts lazing around and at times wagging tails and following you around too. There are unhappy moments and ones that can be avoided at times. The only difference between humans and the canines, being the existence of a slightly improved mental ability of the former. I would like to conclude by saying that what happened with the child in Bangalore is a shock and I genuinely sympathize with the parents and no words can console the victim’s family, nor can they express my sadness to the event. That such incidents do not repeat should be our focus. We can start by reducing the number of stray dogs only by virtue of deploying euthanasia and only targeting unhealthy dogs. The programs for spaying and neutering need to be intensified and actually implemented. Children need to be educated on their interaction with the world around them in school and at home. More parks and playgrounds should be made available to them. The civic system should be improved not only by the authorities taking care but also by the citizens themselves supporting the system by way of hygienic approach and garbage maintenance and making efforts to keep the city clean.
Our response to the incident should not be hasty and drastic. Rather the efforts should be made collectively and most importantly, individually. Let me start by making an effort to do the needful today and try to inform and educate the people around me. I am sure that others will follow my lead and do so themselves. Let the elected bodies take note and make efforts to accomplish plans and programs decided earlier and try to frame new policies and come up with better allocation and better utilizations of the finances and the efforts available to them.
Otherwise what next? Do we start killing the monkey population in the capital since the authorities seem to be unable to handle their population or their mischief which could prove very costly one day?
Nature is all around us. Let’s let it coexist with us. Without it, we don’t stand a chance to survive as well.
Let’s save humanity by firstly staying humans-compassionate and forgiving.
Particularly @Devika Arora
No point in hating humans who hate dogs. Its no different from those who are hating dogs!
Hatred is hatred… the same poison :)
Love is like a Butterfly: It goes where it pleases and it pleases wherever it goes.
Looks like the link didn’t make it. Here it is again… please read it as this has got my vote to be THE POST OF THE CENTURY… :)
Love is like a Butterfly: It goes where it pleases and it pleases wherever it goes.
http://sureshg.wordpress.com/2007/02/19/love-is-like-a-butterfly-it-goes-where-it-pleases-and-it-pleases-wherever-it-goes/
we are humans. top of pyramid chart of food chain? we belive in taking out our fustrations on animals cause they cant complain . please god help people who wants to play ur role of deciding who they want and who they dont want in this world .please dont blame all problems like children playing on streets on dogs because we humanns need to control our population more then any other species on this earth. its request to people who like to blame their problems on plants and animals to just think for a moment what contribution they are providing to mother nature not to their own defined human society