“As per INDIAN LAW towards community street dogs – Dogs should be sterilized/ neutered and vaccinated but other activities like Killing, Relocating, Abusing etc., are considered as illegal and punishable”
Here’s the recent story of mine, about the problem that I faced in a living community concerning the stray animals and what I did in my capacity to solve the problem
Previously I was living in one of the housing communities in Hyderabad. However, after I moved to another premises, I’ve witnessed the daily struggle of stray animals for food and water in the environment.
I’ve personally seen and experienced the pain of the birds, stray dogs, cows, buffaloes, and other animals searching for food and water. To reduce the daily struggle experienced by these animals, I’ve installed a water bowl within my community and mobilized a few members of the society to consistently clean the water bowl and fill it with potable water. These dedicated individuals take up the responsibility of water-bowl activity and do it in my absence.
While exploring this newly joined society, I observed a few female dogs are not sterilized, and the dog population increased due to mating during the season.
So, I’ve decided to solve this challenge by building a rapport and trust with the animals through regular feeding by providing food s and water in their locality. After two months, I’ve observed that these dogs were in a mating mood and needed to be sterilized immediately.
To control the mating among the dogs, I’ve made an appointment with a veterinary doctor. Since I’m new to these premises, I have a challenge of keeping the dogs at my place that need sterilization, as I already have adopted five dogs that stay with me.
To find a temporary shelter for the yet-to-be sterilized dogs that needed pre-and post-operative care, I did an extensive search for them, but couldn’t find a cover that would fulfil the needs of these dogs.
Since the female dogs were in their mating season, I decided to get their sterilization as quick as possible to prevent the male dogs from mating with the females. Hence, I decided to sterilize two female dogs, Rani and Shamy, a mother and daughter duo, earlier identified by me as they trust me.
After the vet’s appointment the day before, I went to catch these two dogs to keep them at my place. Due to the mating season, these two females are surrounded by a couple of male dogs.
There was a ferocious, bulky dog that was not leaving a female dog at all, despite injury and bleeding caused due to the fights. Due to this, I could not catch this particular female as the male was running behind the female wherever it went.
Since I alone could not catch hold of this particular dog, I’ve decided to take the help of professional animal dog catchers, who can see the female dog by blocking the male dogs, and take the female to my home.
But before that, I’ve already caught a friendly female dog that was not in heat and took it home. In the process, I’ve called the animal dog catchers, who tirelessly worked for more than 4 hours to catch the female in a mating mood.
As we know that dogs have a great sense of smell, they can quickly identify who’s a friend and a threat to them. The female dog recognized these professionals, and got scared for their life, started to run in the vast open space that was there in my neighbourhood. This was followed by a male dog that was also ready to mate with the female.
Due to the follow-up of the male behind the female dog follow-up, I’ve lost hope to catch the female dog. So despite the best efforts of the animal dogcatcher , the female could not be seen, and the action of the animal dog catcher (animal rescuer) went in vain as I did pay them to do their job.
Under such circumstances, I thought to myself that even though the female dog could not be caught at this moment, there’s a chance that I could catch it some other time and sterilize it.
As I fixed the doctor’s appointment for the next day, i.e., Saturday, I’ve lost hope of sterilizing that particular female. However, as I have a habit of feeding the stray animals twice a day in the afternoon and night, on the wee hours of Saturday around 1.30 am, I went outside to feed the strays as usual but didn’t expect to find that female.
On that day, I saw that particular female, along with other male dogs, completely exhausted and feeling hungry and thirsty, sitting on the ground since I feed the strays by filling the water bowl with clean water and offer them biscuits by placing them at different spots where the animals can eat biscuits safely.
Luckily, I found this female, along with a couple of other male dogs, so I scattered the biscuits at random places. I found the female and other dogs busy eating the food; since there was a distance between the dogs, I discovered that this was the right moment to catch the female dog.
I’ve taken a risk to catch the female dog that was friendly and trusted me, so I immediately took hold of that dog in my hands, started to walk quickly inside the community gate, and asked the watchman to close the gate.
As it was early Saturday morning and pitch dark, the male dog didn’t accompany me but instead went into searching for the female at other places as it didn’t particularly notice that the female was in my hands.
As I entered my community’s gate, I told the watchman to close the gate. I had to walk around half-kilometer to reach my home by holding the female in my hands, as I didn’t have a vehicle to carry the dog. Since the female was already friendly with me earlier, luckily, the dog stayed calm and enabled me to reach the home safely.
I already made an appointment with a veterinary physician for sterilization; I safely took them to the doctor’s clinic for sterilization from my place through a pet van at 6.30 am on Saturday.
At around 8 am, the vet performed a sterilization procedure on both the female dogs that were with me throughout the previous night without giving them food as it’s mandatory for the dogs to be on fast for 8-12 hours the day before their surgery.
The vet performed surgery on both the females successfully, brought them back safely to my home. They were living safely and happily with me post sterilization.
As the dogs required rest post-surgery to recover, I’ve chosen to take care of them for five days in my home and release them to their earlier location in which they were caught and will continue to feed these dogs as usual.
Since the dogs are sterilized now, they cannot desire to mate, so they will not be chased by the male dogs, reduces the aggressiveness, they are also prevented from health issues and increases their life span too. Now they are happily living in the community.
As an animal and humanity advocate, I kindly request everyone in their community to take out some time for the animals and try to sterilize at least one street dog per month in the community. This step towards the animals helps us control the animal population, prevent injuries and deaths that occur due to mating, and prevent hunger deaths resulting from an increased population due to lack of food and water.
Hence, we can individually and collectively contribute to the welfare of stray animals through sterilization and feeding the strays in our community.