CANINE CONUNDRUM

The rising incidence of street dog attacks across India reignite the touchy issue of human-canine coexistence

- Sonali Acharjee and Suhani Singh

For Noida-based homemaker Uma Sharma, 49, feeding the six stray dogs outside her home was a way to cope with the death of her husband four years ago. Without their love and loyalty, she would have gone into depression. Regretfully, members of her housing society did not share her love of dogs. A year ago, when Sharma was away on vacation, they picked up four of the six dogs and relocated them without her knowledge. “It broke my heart,” she says. “I had to go in for therapy to get over the trauma. The dogs had never bitten or attacked anyone. They had been vaccinated. But due to the prejudices of some people, they paid a hefty price.” Despite finding out where the dogs had been shifted, she wasn’t able to locate them. Being territorial, introducing dogs to a new area often results in their death as new packs have trouble accepting an outsider.

Feeding stray dogs has been an age-old bone of contention between animal lovers and their opposers. Recently, it has been exacerbated by the rise in street dog attacks across India, triggering a public panic of sorts. In October, a three-year-old girl was killed in the Patnagarh block of Odisha’s Balangir district. In September, the video of a 12-year-old boy being attacked by a stray dog in front of his house in Kerala’s Kozhikode district went viral on social media. In April, a pack of stray dogs attacked two children—aged 7 and 5—in Lucknow’s Musahabganj area, killing one and badly injuring the other.