Stray dogs now is a part of the security apparatus at Bangalore Airport

The management of Bangalore International Airport (BIAL) has spared no expense to ensure your safety.

Bangalore’s very own international airport has achieved the distinction of being the first airport in the country  to implement a multi-tier security regime. BIAL has added an extra layer of security in the form of 300 stray dogs who are standing guard and watching over visitor and VIP movement in its premises. This unique arrangement has been made possible thanks to a unique Public-Private-Stray engagement model evolved by the BIAL management.

The extra layer of security at BIAL
While most airports in the country and around the world may have one or at the max two levels of security, BIAL boasts of a three-tier arrangement consisting of CISF, private security guards and stray dogs at the periphery. When contacted, a proud and beaming BIAL spokesperson Chavvani Lal said “this is indeed a remarkable achievement for our airport. The external security cordon that we have enforced is completely dependent on stray dogs. And I am not speaking about ordinary mongrels here. These are the best strays in the country and have been picked from localities where they forced people to move out”.

When Humor Unplugged visited BIAL, we found strays roaming everywhere. The mission hounds were keeping a watch over everyone, especially people with food. “These animals have been trained to keep an eye on people consuming perishables in the premises. Such people could be carrying biochemical weapons on them and we need to be extremely careful. So if a stray comes near you and snatches food from your hands, don’t be alarmed and cooperate with these dogs as they are simply doing their duty by testing your food. This is in the larger interest of passengers using our state of the art airport,” Lal said.

BIAL’s senior management, according to sources is mulling a proposal to increase the number of strays guarding the airport. “I have no problems with that since I never use BIAL. I always travel to either Chennai or Hyderabad if I have to catch a flight,” a senior BIAL guy told Humor Unplugged over a Skype chat.

Poor Stray dogs in India

There are more than 30 million stray dogs in India, in urban as well as rural areas. A good number of these dogs in the urban setting are more community dogs rather than feral. Stray dogs is used to refer to lost and abandoned pets or others that had been socialized to humans before taking to the free-ranging life, and feral refer to those who have lived all their lives apart from people.

Most free-roaming dogs belong to an ancient canine race known as the pariah dog, which has existed all over Asia and Africa ever since human beings started living in settlements. They are scavengers–that is, they live on garbage created by humans. In India the breed has existed for perhaps 14,000 years or more. In addition to scavenging, they are widely kept as pets by rural and urban slum households.

Part of the urban stray population consists of mongrels or mix-breeds–descended from pure-breed dogs that have been allowed to interbreed with pariahs.

The size of stray dog populations always corresponds to the size and character of the human population of the area. Urban India has two features which create and sustain stray dog populations:

1) Large amounts of exposed garbage, which provide an abundant source of food.

2) A huge population of slum and street-dwellers, who often keep the dogs as free-roaming pets.

Mumbai has over 12 million human residents, of whom over half are slum-dwellers. At least 500 tons of garbage remain uncollected daily. Therefore, conditions are perfect for supporting a particularly large population of stray dogs.
The problem:
The biggest problem created by these dogs is rabies an dog bites.

Rabies can be a fatal disease which can be transmitted to humans. Although all placental mammals can get and transmit rabies, dogs are one the most common carriers. India has the highest number of human rabies deaths in the world (estimated at 35,000 per year).

Dog bites can occur when dogs are trying to mate or fighting among themselves. Pedestrians and other humans in the vicinity may be bitten by the fighting dogs. Females with pups are often protective and may bite people who approach their litter.

The solution:
Killing the dogs doesnt really work. Mass killing is a fruitless, inhumane, ineffective task and certainly didn’t work in other countries too, like in the seven years that Bucharest permitted it – street dog numbers did not decline.

Most states in India have been killing stray dogs for decades. The idea came from ‘developed countries’ without understanding the very different urban conditions in India. India has rubbish dumps and slum areas, which attract strays. Dogs removed are easily replaced.

When a dog is taken away:
· His territory becomes vacant and dogs from around move in to occupy the area.
· Dogs continue to multiply, so the areas are soon filled again.
· Dog fights increase, because each time a new dog enters an area he is attacked by the dogs already in there.
· During dog fights many humans get accidentally bitten.
· Rabies spreads to humans, due to no vaccination programs of strays
· Rabies continues to spread because the dog-catchers are reluctant to pick up a rabid dog – so only healthy dogs get killed.

The effective solution is a methodical Sterilization, vaccination, adoption, education and clean living. Educating and reaching people about sterilization of not only stray dogs, but pets to control the population, educating about living in balance wit the dogs and extending compassion.
ABC Animal birth control scheme set up by the Indian government to control the dog population by sterilization as opposed to the traditional method of killing dogs.
Under this program, stray dogs are surgically neutered and then replaced in their own area. They are also vaccinated against rabies.
The problem of pathetic implementation of this scheme, and government shelters being torture chambers instead for the dogs is a different point that I will write about in another post.

It is a slow process and often, cities go back to culling and create problems for the Animal Welfare orgs. Lets all try to reach out to as many as we can and discuss the solutions. Volunteers make the biggest difference in any effort. Volunteers, who take their community dogs to sterilization and vaccination events, volunteers who help the abused or diseased animals.

Indian Pariah dogs, native dogs, and mixes actually make for great pets because they are native breeds and already accustomed to the land and climate unlike foreign breeds which fail to thrive as easily. Read more about the Indian Pariah dog and native breeds here http://indianpariahdog.blogspot.com/

To Read more about Animal Birth control in India http://abcindia.org.in/

There are always ethical questions about Excessive sterilization and eventual elimination of native breeds. But for right now the above solution is the current solution to help implement because

    There is a big imbalance between the human dog peaceful existence in India. The apathy and lack of compassion will always lead to mass culling getting accepted as a normal thing.
    It is generally accepted that many of the free-roaming dogs in Indian cities and towns(urban) are actually mix-breeds (mongrels), though some certainly look more "mixed" than others. Pure Pariah and native dogs are more common in rural and remote areas where there are no Eurobreeds or other types of dog to interbreed with.
    There are 30 million strays in India. A good sterilization, vaccination implementation will reduce the occurrence and hence fear of rabies. Some additional compassion outreach, adoption and volunteer encouragement will help change the outlook towards strays.

Of course, these are ideal solutions and work best in theory. A practical implementation of the solution is far from being anywhere close to workable and much more painful for the dogs and humans both. Thank you for dropping by. Please do leave your comments and ideas about the post.

What crime with the poor dog

Dangerous dogs are increasingly linked to worrying and persistent trends in antisocial behaviour, and so it's no surprise that so many of us up and down the country are concerned about the problem. Battersea Dogs & Cats Home, together with the RSPCA and Blue Cross have called for an urgent and overdue review of the existing failing dog legislation. Maybe, just maybe, with the recent appointment of Lord Taylor of Holbeach as the new government minister there could be a glimmer of hope that we will see some effective action.



Lord Taylor has promised to make any future legislation effective and enforceable in tackling the dangerous dogs issues that are so concerning us all. But as the problems around irresponsible dog ownership, stray and dangerous dogs intensify, and budgets get tight or, in the case of some local authorities disappear altogether, it may not be long before there is another serious dog attack on a member of the public, or even a young child.

This is not scaremongering. It is a sad but inescapable fact that a minority of people still continue to treat dogs irresponsibly, use them for the wrong things and care only about their personal status in their community or peer group. Battersea is on the frontline dealing with the repercussions of dog issues, as on average 17 stray, abandoned, abused, or dangerous dogs come through our doors every day.

We are the first to pick up the pieces for these dogs, but the pressures on us, as well as the police and local authorities, are mounting. For more than 150 years we have stood by our founding mission to aim never to turn away a dog or cat in need of our help. But as the stray and dangerous dog problem gets worse, our work becomes harder and harder.

What many people may not realise is Battersea takes in every type of dog, and not just those that are easy to rehome. So inevitably more and more of the dogs coming into the charity's rehoming centres have been so badly abused, or trained to be a dangerous "weapon" that it's too late to help them. Some of these dogs can't possibly be safely rehomed, and sadly we have to put them to sleep. At least most people recognise that the harsh reality is this is the only responsible option.

This is predominantly an urban problem and, like us, many of our local authority partners are struggling to cope with the growing stray and dangerous dogs problem. They are legally bound to accept stray dogs off the street when a dog is first spotted or brought to them but severe budget cuts mean they are having to put to sleep perfectly friendly and healthy stray dogs, before they ever reach rescue centres such as Battersea. And more and more strays remain on the street, presenting a potential risk to the public. Battersea is working with local authorities to help find solutions. We're encouraging them to share their kennelling costs with neighbouring local boroughs, but there is only so much we can do.

It would be simplistic to say these problems will go away if only the government would put its hand in its pocket and support inner city local authorities. But Lord Taylor must now take the lead and develop a national strategy to tackle dog control problems. If stray dog services were given a higher priority, we wouldn't have as many of the dog problems we see on our streets today.

Help stray dog is a long thing

The comment sections of our web site are designed for thoughtful, intelligent conversation and debate. We want to hear from our viewers but we are not obligated to post all comments. We especially will not post those we feel inappropriate or violate our guidelines. However, our interpretation of what is considered proper and what is not, can often be different than those posting to the site. Here are some but not all of the criteria we use when posting comments:

• Comments cannot be profane or vulgar. Children and families visit this site all the time. We will not post comments that use profanity or cross the lines of good taste.

• We will not post comments that use hate speech. Slurs, stereotypes and violent talk aren’t welcome on our web site.
•  

• Comments should not attack other readers or people featured in our stories personally. Any accusations should be backed up with facts. For example we will not post a comment accusing someone of being a drug dealer or child molester if they have not been charged with that crime. We will, at our discretion, allow more broad based postings. For instance, heated political points of view might be allowed if it’s directed at an entire party or a public figure. If directed toward a private individual or commenter, we likely won’t post.

• We don’t post comments that indulge in just plain bad behavior. We are not obligated to post comments that are just plain rude or insensitive. We reserve the right to determine what is considered rude and insensitive and what is not.

• Any comment we post will be posted in its entirety. We do not edit any comment that we post.

As a host WEAU 13 News welcomes a wide spectrum of opinions. However this is a site that we host. We have a responsibility to all our readers to try to keep our comment section fair and decent. For that reason WEAU 13 News reserves the right to not post or to remove any comment.