Cry, but the dogs won?t go!

SORRY! YOU’LL have to live with street dogs. It sounds strange. But, that is what it means for the Lucknow Municipal Corporation seems to have been influenced by the animal rights activists and not catching the stray dogs.

However, this laxity has multiplied dog population and the risk of dog bites too.

As per tentative figures of Lucknow Municipal Corporation and animal rights groups, there are about 40,000 street dogs in the city. Out of which only 3500 have been given anti-rabies vaccine. But, the effect of the dose only lasts a year.

The rest 36,500 dogs are just having a field day. The LMC has no place to keep these dogs away from the population. The NGO’s working for the animal rights give their own reasons for not displacing the dogs from the streets as they become hostile and develop behavioural changes .

They ask the residents to live with the street dogs, as for them dog bite is not a big deal.

A spokesman of an animal rights NGO said, “ We are ready to educate the residents how to live with the dogs but we are not ready to displace them.”

Surprisingly, no NGO is ready to keep these street dogs forever with them. They want the community to feed these dogs and take care of them.  Chief veterinary officer of Lucknow Municipal Corporation expresses his helplessness to control the menace.

“Our hands are tied by the law. The Act of cruelty against the animals prohibits us from killing street dogs. To add to our woes the animal rights group always keep on harassing our workers and interfering in our work,” said chief vet Dr AP Singh.

“We are supposed to release the dog at the same place from where we catch them for the castration, as change of place for the dogs is prohibited and it induces hostility in them. But the residents oppose the releasing of dogs in their colonies after they are caught by us. At some places our squad had faced resistance from the residents,” said Singh. 

 This year from January, he said, “we have caught more than 450 street dogs and sent them for the castration with the various NGO’s of the city. The central government pays Rs 450 per dog for the castration. Last years four NGO’s of the city performed castration of 2160 dogs and were paid Rs 9,61,200 to the NGO’s for their work.”

Vivek Sharma of Doctors Pet Crèche Animal Welfare Trust says, “We would never allow the dogs to be displaced from their living places. But surely we help LMC in their work of castration they bring the dogs to us. We castrate them and give them a anti-rabies dote and release them at the place where they were caught, we can’t allow any animal to be displaced.”

Similarly Naveen of  Peoples’ for Animals says, “It’s for LMC to catch all the dogs and ensure the castration and give them the anti-rabies vaccines.”