Every Dog has his Day. The moment anyone talks anything about Animal Welfare we think of it as a fanciful idea straight out of Maneka Gandhis' head. Granted that Ms Gandhi plays a pivotal role in the welfare of animals, but what most are unaware of is that India is one among (about) 65 of the 192 countries that has National Animal Protection Laws – The Prevention of Cruelties to Animals Act 1960, The Experiments on Animals (Control and Supervision) Rules, 1968, The Performing Animals Rules 1973, The Transport of Animals Rules 1978, The Experiments on Animals (Control and Supervision) Rules, 1968 and The Wild Life Protection Act 1972- to name a few. What Ms Gandhi and many other people are doing, is just trying to get the existing laws enforced. In this blog I’ll address the issue of Stray Dogs. Lata Mangeshkar sings, Zakir plays the Tabla, Pt.Ravi Shankar- the sitar and Madhuri Dixit can dance. And nobody else can do it like them. However I suspect that some of my neighbours probably expect similar stuff from my four legged friends. Many-a –times Vaidya Kaka comes all agitated to me pleading to silence the natural call of some animal or bird. He cribs and complains about a cat meowing, an owl hooting, a bird chirping, a donkey braying, a gloat bleating or a dog barking. Yesterday he came to see me (again) and after the initial exchange of pleasantries I heard the familiar bark. “You must do something about these stray dogs”. His bark was a whimper. “Last night I was coming back from work and these dogs started following me. I began to run and almost fell over a pothole. I tell you one of them almost bited me”. Just then we were joined by another neighbour Kamal bhabhi. “I know”, she said. “These stray dogs are such a nuisance. But this Maneka Gandhi has no other work to do. She is always interested in like these things only. If she is loving all animals so much then she should keep all of them in her house. Why she is causing trouble for other peoples? You must stop supporting her”, she said scornfully. “Yes Yes. If you want to do social work only, then do something else.” A little support from Kamla bhabhi, and Vaidya Kaka’s whimper was replaced by a roar. Mum came out with tea for the two angry birds, as I sat down to rattle out some facts and calm down Kaka and bhabhi. “Let’s begin by how did the dogs land up on our streets?”, I said. “Thousands of years ago we befriended the wolves. They helped us in hunting and provided us companionship. They lived on the scraps of food that we shared with them. Later we bred them. Today, however the evolved stray is nothing but a menace to us. For years together the government was poisoning them with strychnine, killing them in gas chambers or electrocuting them, yet was unable to control their population and rabies. We must understand that stray dogs live on our garbage dumps. They forage for food in the piles of garbage that gets collected on streets. A stray dogs life-span is between 4-6years unlike 12-17 years of a pet dog. Infact a simple solution to curb the stray dog population could be regular cleaning of our garbage bins thereby insuring that pests don’t thrive. Killing the dogs leads to better chances of survival for the other dogs. Hence the ABC-Animal Birth Control program was started with the help of the RSPCA ( Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelties to Animals England) in many Indian cities using the guidelines issued by WHO, where stray dogs are neutered and vaccinated and sent back to the same streets that they belong to( since they are territorial animals).Neutering the dogs also makes them far less aggressive. Also there is a provision in our law that any animal which cannot be treated for any life threatening disease or is confirmed to have rabies can be euthanized by a veterinarian. For quite a few years now NGO’s have been implementing the ABC programme in different towns and cities. However one must remember that they are largely supported by private funding and donations, with the government playing very little role. After sharing this information Kaka looked convinced. We've been unsuccessful in curbing human population then why bark at the stray dogs. Kaka, after all controlling dog population will take time. Why be so intolerant of those creatures that we share the space with?” Probably Saving the Tiger or the Rhinoceros is a more glamorous campaign to be associated with. If you have a stray dog problem in your area, get together with the people in your building and collectively contact your corporator, the sanitary or health department of your Municipal Corporation or your local SPCA. Get the dogs in your area neutered and vaccinated and make our life and the life of these lovely four-legged friends better. Common let every dog have it's day!