Dealing with Dogs?

brownboy66

OR (as indicated by the sunglasses), he has "the blues" which is a good thing

brownboy66

eewww! If you are going to give details try the "cockroach in the ear" thread - as that one has turned decidedly icky! Last time I looked they were talking about new ways to terminate roaches using chemicals, cooking them as a snack, and then someone said something about not sleeping with your mouth open...EEWWW!

vargoje3

Haha i wont get into any details but you could imagine what happened.

Nick-H

Ahh... That kind of friendship....

Indian street dogs suffer a lot of cruelty, and many will cower (is that the right spelling?) away if you even look as if you might kick them.

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Just one member of the IndiaMike Mod Team

fly2raven

My only experience in India with an aggressive dog was in Goa at around 6:00am on a beach miles away from my hotel...this dog followed me for over an hour becoming more and more aggressive..I finally took off my sandals and held them in each hand - ready to swing if needed - I made it back to the hotel beach but this dog actually followed me back all the way into the hotels gardens and I was only left alone when I entered the building...I was really scared...after that I was no longer comfortable walking on the beach early in the morning alone...

Each year in India there are at least a few children that are killed by street dogs...they are a dangerous menace...when I first came here I felt horrible for the dogs...and in many ways I still do...but the spade/nuder then re-release program that India is following is just not working...these dogs should be humanely put to sleep...what kind of quality of life do they have anyway? eating garbage or starving, being hit by cars and people, being infested by parasites...

lotus blossom

i'd say that this is one of the hardest things about traveling in india. i detest seeing the way the dogs (and some of the meandering cows) are mis-treated.

i've written on the forum about the sweet little dog that i sort of adopted when i lived in majnu-ka-tilla, delhi for six weeks. what started our friendship was hearing him yelp one night when a careless cycle rickshaw wallah ran over his paw as he lay sleeping. i pet him to help calm the poor boy and after that started saving some food scraps for him. a few times he followed me to my hotel, only to be shooed away by the owner, of course.

all the tibetans knew i loved that dog, and seemed to be treating it a bit nicer with witnessing my care of him. one day a little girl of about four was hitting him with a stick, for no other reason than that is what she has witnessed, so i talked with her about it but she had such a puzzled look on her face, seemingly having a difficult time understanding my affection for this creature.

when it came time to leave delhi, leaving that dog behind was the hardest thing. i bought him a big meal of some sort of meat (can't recall now) as a going away treat - he was in heaven. thinking about him makes me miss the little guy; when i left i made a wish that other travelers would adopt him (or other dogs) too.

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lotus blossom

must've been a scary experience.

i agree that the dogs who are very sickly would, imho, be better off if they were put out of their (apparent) misery, especially the misery of being treated so cruely.

vargoje3

There was this one dog that everyday would try to attack and bite me as i rode by on my honda hero so one day i let it get close and just gave it a good whallop right in the face w/ my sandal. It left me alone after that.

birds

I am sorry to hear about your experiences but I believe these are still the exception.

For your information, the sterlisation programmes do work extremely well if implemented correctly, like in many areas in Delhi and Bangalore, but unfortunately this is rarely the case.

Worldwide the sterlisation programmes have proven to be the ONLY way to control stray populations and are the strategy recommended by the World Health Organisation.

Killing strays has no affect in the long term because in areas where they are killed more food/garbage becomes available which will attract outside dogs which will successfully breed due to the extra food availability.

Thanks for taking care of that poor dog .

In the future if you encounter an injured or even just a friendly dog, the best thing you can do to help the local population and the dogs (or cats) is to call the local animal rescue organisation and help them to catch it for sterilisation and vacination. A sterilised dog will be less aggressive and less likely to get sick.

One of the reasons why the sterilisation programmes are slow to show result is because people do not help them to catch strays. The organisations lose a lot of time trying to catch strays and that while many strays are friendly and if fed for a few days trusting enough to be tied up to wait for the animal ambulance to pick them up.

Nearly every city/large village has at least one animal rescue organisation. They tend to offer their services for free (although donations are welcome). They can easily be found on the internet with a Google search.

Nick-H

My bold puts your claim in perspective, I hope.

Yep. Just like there are in UK, and no doubt, other European countries and America, a few children that are maimed by pet dogs.

I don't think the rest of your post is worth commenting on.

fly2raven

Birds - you are right - sterilization procedures work with they are implemented..but they either are not implemented here or not implemented correctly. I am not sure where in Bangalore they have got it right...I live here and have been all over this city and the dogs are bad everywhere..

Nick...that was my only experience with an aggressive dog because I wouldn't allow myself to get into that situation again. My family won't even allow me to walk three blocks alone from one cousins house to another in Hyderabad after the sun sets because they are afraid of attacks -

I know three people - which says a lot because I don't know many people here - that have been bitten by street dogs...

And I personally think that being torn apart by dogs for FOOD because they are hungry is on a different level from being bitten/maimed by a family pet.

blackbird

What's with all this dog hating?

• I have seen thousands of dogs in India and so far not once been threatened by one -- I've been harrassed and attacked by dogs many times in England.
• Indians don't treat dogs half as badly as westerners would if they were noisy and/or aggressive. We'd have a mass slaughter campaign on the grounds of disease. I'm impressed by the fact that drivers so rarely run over them (not even their paws) when they're sleeping in the middle of a main road.
• Dogs may look a right state, but they help keep places clean and tidy by scavenging.
• Many Indians encourage stray dogs around their settlements as a warning system and protection against intruders. One time when I was camping rough we were a bit freaked out by the dogs hanging round, but we were encouraged to feed them (at a distance), they hung around all night and didn't bother us at all.

So yes, I'm sure that a few people are killed by dogs in India each year, but I expect a lot more people are killed by people... especially if you include preventable disease and malnutrition....

birds

I lived in Bangalore for three years and was involved in various sterilisation drives. FYI, every month CUPA sterilises about 1200 dogs, in addition other animal organisations do about 600 every month. In areas were the local people help them catching the dogs the situation is under control (e.g. Koramangala, Sarajpur). Have you ever considered helping to do something to solve the problem rather than just complain?

As Blackbird says, in India the attitude towards animals is generally very positive.

fly2raven

I didn't think I was complaining...just commenting on the dog situation in Bangalore in a thread that is about dealing with the dogs in India...

I don't think the attitude here is positive as so much as it is neutral...people here...regular people on the streets...could care less about these animals, they are focused on where they are going to get their next meal or how they are going to come up with the rent money...

I think what these animals have to go through on a daily basis to survive is horrible...in the end its all about quality of life...and whether they are sterilized or not doesn't really change the fact that the quality that they do have is very little...

brownboy66

well....this thread has taken an interesting turn. Just out of curiosity - have done a bit of digging.

Was only able to find one statistic about deaths in india directly due to a dog attack, and that was for 2004 which was one reported death. In that same year - there were 6 deaths in Australia as a direct result of a dog attack. When you look at rabies, however, the stats change dramatically.

About 3 to 3.5 million. That's how many dog bite cases are reported in India every year. Of that - about 30,000 people die of rabies. 70% of all deaths by rabies in the world occur in India (of which more than 90% are due to dog bites). The indian community medical journal did a six month survey in one province - and listed 1603 cases of dog bites. Less than 40% of those cases were due to strays - the majority were family pets.

Don't know if any of the above gives a clearer picture. One thing seems obvious - in India Rabies is a problem - so best to make sure you don't get bitten (which is where I think this thread actually started)...

peace everyone.