#StrayDeaths: Population Control At The Cost Of Innocent Life?

The only method to curb our city’s perennial human-animal conflict is by effective population control with the sterilisation of dogs in the city.

However, the recent sterilisation drives in the city have allegedly led to several deaths according to prominent animal volunteers.

Some activists and volunteers have apparently noticed that several dogs picked up from the area have not been returned to their original habitat. Enquiries with the dog pounds hasn’t yielded any results either.

City animal activists, volunteers and other spoke to Pune365 sharing their experience with the sterilisation drives in the city:

Vineeta Tandon, Senior President of SAS India says that Pune Cantonment Board has been the least cooperative towards volunteers when it comes for sterilisation of dogs. PMC and PCMC are better and give access to volunteers for checking on their respective strays.

“An NGO which has been given the contract for sterilisation has allegedly been removing the dogs uterus which is illegal.

Also, most of the times they have not been operating dogs. They just notch their ears and leave them back on the streets. We have enough evidence of dogs with ears notched who have subsequently, delivered puppies.

PMC vans are not dog-friendly and most of the time they catch sterilised dogs in exchange for a bribe and relocate them which is illegal. Local corporators and governing bodies also contribute a lot to relocation.

The dogs are not supposed to be held for a barking menace and can be taken in only for sterilisation. This is also now going to be restricted henceforth, as the ABC programme will be taken care of by RESQ.

No resident or corporator can call the PMC van for a relocation of dogs.

Recalling an incident, Vineeta says, a residential society in a city had several dogs being caught which included sterilised ones as well. When reached the spot, we’ were told that the order was issued by the commissioner as the residents had filed a complaint about the stray menace in the society. .

After explaining to them the rules by AWBI and registering a complaint against the commissioner, the dogs were released, Vadhera added.

Neeta Pandit, Animal Activist from PCMC says, Sterilization is not carried out as suggested, or as per the guidelines set by AWBI.

Relocation of dogs is a major concern. There is no treatment facility for sick or injured dogs taken in on society based complaints. They are not given proper food before and after surgery and all this leads to the death of strays.

Government is not taking appropriate and quick action to ensure ABC program is run as per their protocols. Our PCMC commissioner is well aware of the situation, yet, there is no change in the scenario. The commissioner has assured us that he will look into it, but,  as on date, nothing has improved, Pandit added

Anushree Chowdhry, Animal Activist says, “The number of stray dogs has been increasing primarily because of the failure of the government in implementing the ABC programme effectively in the city.

Few volunteers from our area decided to get the dogs sterilised and this is when we saw how horrible the situation was at the pounds.

A volunteer who spoke to us said “ My dogs came back after 22days with their testes, tummies and other parts lying open. She couldn’t even relieve herself and was grounded.

When we asked the doctor who operated on them, he chose to ignore us. Some people also told us that dogs were allegedly operated upon by the dog catchers and not vets.

Thanks to another vet Dr. Shinde’s timely intervention, we were able to save all 15 and the recovery took almost a month. 

Anushree, a resident of Pimple Saudagar hasn’t heard good reviews of the PCMC pound and the dogs apparently come back full of ticks. Apparently, they are just given biscuits and are not given the right diets to take surgery.

Hence, we don’t take a chance with the pound, and take them instead to canine Control Care for the surgery.

Shreyasi Mujumdar opines that the hygiene is hugely compromised. I got two of my stray dogs neutered there and they well hell bent on releasing them in just two-three days. A female needs to stay away from physical strain for minimum 5 days to recover fully.

The food served during the post-op is not at all nutritional and one of my friend’s stray dogs almost starved to death. They had to be taken utmost care off after release to bring them back to normal. This is apparently the case with both PMC and PCMC pound.

There is no anti-tick medicine given and my strays were full of ticks. My female stray suffered tick fever and some internal injury due to the surgery and succumbed to it.

It is necessary to understand the importance of life, breed or no breed! Population control is important, but not at the cost of lives.

For many they are just another dog, but for us, they are part of our everyday life and are very precious, Majumdar added.

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# All views expressed in this article are those of the individual respondents and Pune365 does not necessarily subscribe to them.