Chitra Aiyer

ut the stray dogs in Bangalore.
On Bangalore Metroblogging - New Kids on the block
Earlier on my Blog - Street dog menace
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Please help to save the stray dogs of Bangalore from indiscriminate killing … Here’s how you can help:

• please read the email below to understand the issue, and to see why Animal Birth Control is the only strategy that is both humane and effective in controlling the stray dog population.
• please sign this Online petition
• please read these related blogs - savebangalorestrays , catsofbangalore (note: they describe the cruelty being inflicted on the dogs, and they are not easy reading)
• please take a few moments to blog about it and spread the word…
• please write to the media expressing your protest.

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Dear Friends,

Excuse me for taking your time - but this is a shocking tale of how an inefficient administration unable to do its job well can recourse to barbarism to find short-term solutions to its problems. So please, please read - and pass on the message to anyone who cares that the BANGALORE LOCAL AUTHORITIES ARE BRUTALLY MURDERING THOUSANDS OF DOGS ON THE STREETS!

I would begin by regretting deeply the two incidents of children getting mauled in Bangalore. For those who are not from Bangalore, allow me to bring you up the curve - these were two unfortunate incidents of children being mauled by stray dogs recently in semi-rural Bangalore. Anyone living in a city would be familiar with such incidents - an urban “Man-Animal Conflict” phenomenon which is sad and avoidable. Both incidents have happened in peripheral areas where the CNVR program (Catch Neuter Vaccinate Release/ABC) has NOT been implemented.

Obviously, the media of this city went to town over this, glossing over the menace and pointed fingers at the local authorities. The authorities passed the buck on to the NGO’s, without any compassionate or scientific understanding of the problem. What followed was a diktat of the worst kind: a death sentence to all dogs on the streets of this so-called advanced technopolis.

This solution suggested by the Bangalore authorities to KILL EVERY STRAY DOG (numbering in hundreds of thousands) is the most primitive and barbaric one can imagine, and only points to their ineptness and apathy to the real problem at hand.

In a knee jerk reaction to unwarranted hype, thousands of animals have been subjected to death by strangulation, crushing their skulls with boulders after bleach thrown in the eyes to make the animal blind and docile. After living and working in 4 metros, I cannot recall any city ever coming up with such a solution to the challenge of strays.

We followed a dog-catching vehicle (KA03 9906) this morning to the KR Puram CMC Office where we were brow-beaten and forced to retreat. The secret information was that the animals would be taken the same night for execution in a village outside Hosakote. The sentence: To be beaten to death or crushed with stones.

But what I saw will live in my memory forever: The physical abuse that the white female was going through was horrific: I stopped one catcher from beating her with a Plank embedded with two nails - you can see the blood spouting and staining the catch-leash.

In the cage we have seen two animals had died of strangulation and the bodies dumped inside. Other dogs were on the on the point of suffocation: the atmosphere was dreadful with howling and wailing, possibly with the knowledge of impending death.

Here I must mention that I petted many of these so called ferocious animals without any problem.

The insane aspect about the entire exercise is that the tame dogs who have no fear at all of humans are the ones being caught as they come willingly to the dog catchers when called, who are getting paid Rs.50 for their “fearless” acts. These animals have no fear of man, but an understanding and a relationship with man, which is often their undoing. Hence, like the tame animal with the red collar and Clipped ear we saw being caught, they can be easily caught and tortured to death.

Tragically almost all the dogs have already been neutered and vaccinated. Their absence will allow potentially dangerous animals to penetrate into the area from rural surroundings where there is no control on disease or Rabies.

The rational solution, which any person with an iota of sense and sensitivity will see, is not by eliminating every dog but by scientifically controlling the population to keep out the real strays that have not been neutered and vaccinated. As mentioned earlier, in many peripheral areas around Bangalore, where the CNVR program(Catch Neuter Vaccinate Release/ABC) has NOT been implemented, there is a problem. But this Hitleresque “Final Solution” is definitely not a step in the right direction.

The situation can best be termed as barbaric and deplorable. We request all to appeal to the CMC’s and put pressure on them to immediately stop catching dogs if they are Collared or have been Vaccinated and Neutered.( Identified By Clipped Ear). All un-neutered dogs should be caught and sent consequently for the CVNR program.

We have taken photographs of what we saw this morning. But they are disturbing, and we decided not to include them in this mail. If you want to see how “man’s best friends” are being treated in this city, please write back and we can forward them to you. Please forward this message to all you know who care. Especially those in the media - please help by bringing this news out to the public as you can make a difference and stop this bloodbath.

Thanks,
Jeremy & Anirban

Jeremey D’Souza: +9198450 72484, 28516894

Anirban Bhattacharya: +9199456 89828

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“If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between dogs and men.” - Mark Twain

Filed under: Stray Dogs, Bangalore