AA Edit | Get Moving Now To Control Stray Dog Menace

The primacy of the human being in his normal habitat, which is mostly urban clusters, has been upheld by the Supreme Court in its ruling on how to deal with the menace of stray dogs. The court was doubling down on its November 2025 verdict while adding that euthanasia of dangerous stray dogs is also permitted.

Animal activists may be up in arms over a sweeping verdict of this nature. But, if the matter is given serious thought, it must be acknowledged that the stray dog menace is one that causes the most anxiety in people, especially the vulnerable like the elderly, school kids and two-wheeler riders whose lower limbs are invariably at threat from charging dogs and those who must step out of home in their quotidian lives.

The court was specific in ruling that “compassion for animal life” cannot override the constitutional obligation of the state to protect human life under Article 21. What the top court has done is to establish the right of human beings to live with dignity, which is not possible if they are eternally hassled by stray dogs the moment they leave home.

The court has emphasised all the conditions it had laid down in last year’s rulings on strays, but which may have been followed more in the breach by various government agencies that were supposed to work on this. True, some of the conditions like creating shelters for holding strays are onerous but a certain will is needed to take on this urban phenomenon of an uncontrolled population of stray dogs.

The judges may be aware that the greatest impediment faced is the lethargy or, even apathy, of state governments in acting to see that strays are rounded up, vaccinated and their breeding is controlled by animal birth control (ABC) methods. The court’s directions to have strays removed from all places with high footfalls like institutions and public transport terminuses and stations may seem daunting, but they must be secured for people’s safety.

To pick up strays and neuter them might have seemed the straightforward way except that organisations like NGOs and the corporation or municipal dog handling divisions that were supposed to follow orders may have hardly moved in six months since the court ruled firmly to tackle this problem head-on.

The animals have rights too, as animal lovers love to put it. They are our fellow creatures on this planet and the dogs were domesticated about 6,000 years ago and have become man’s best friends. The problem is rabid and demonstrably dangerous stray dogs have become a nuisance enough as to be causing an estimated 5,000 to 20,000 deaths annually across India. Such huge variations in the figures for deaths are caused by the fact that dog bite fatalities are grossly underreported.

India joins countries like the US, Russia and Japan that permit euthanasia under statutory safeguards. Granted, the provision will lead to some excesses in the short term, but there are ways to get around this if the authorities are serious enough in implementing the top court’s orders on housing strays by observing the spirit of the law and not only its wording.

The lack of funds to establish a system of stray control measures, the lack of space to create adequate shelters, the lack of designated feeding spots, the lack of personnel to round up strays and the lack of NGOs to help with tackling the menace in a humane way represent huge problems of scale considering the number of strays in the country, especially in urban centres.

Non-compliance with the August and November 2025 SC orders is a dead giveaway of intentions and official indifference. To have a stray-free India is an impossible dream, but a start must be made sometime soon.