Thursday 22 March 2007

MAN'S BEST FRIEND?

Can there be any two thoughts on this – who should we spare, the child or the stray dog?
With the stray dog menace rising steadily, and incidents of attacked children numbing the public mind, this is something that has to be resolved at once.

A four-year-old schoolgirl was attacked and killed by stray dogs in Coimbatore, about a couple of months ago; and more recently stray dogs have killed children in Bangalore.
In the suburbs of Chennai too, stray dogs are proving to be a menace, and there are apprehensions that tragedies similar to the ones in Bangalore and Coimbatore may occur here.

Animal lovers and activists can protest all they want, but surely the life of one child or person is more important than the protection of stray dogs that pose so much danger!
Definitely the stray dog menace should be curbed, and if they have to be put to sleep, so be it.
Do we not dole out capital punishment to murderers? Are dogs special?

Will the vociferous activists, pleading for humane treatment of the strays, take some home and look after them?
It is easy to say bring them under the anti rabies vaccination and birth control programmes.
Is this a practical or practicable solution in a country like ours, where medical treatment and preventive programmes are not available to so many human beings?
This is a country where culturally the dog is an animal to be scorned. We are not like the affluent (and mostly lonely) Americans who take their pet dogs out to walk, armed with a poop shovel and cover.

The problem has to be faced and solved rationally with a cool head, and decisions come to – is it to be the human being or the dog?

See:
http://www.hindu.com/2007/03/20/stories/2007032019590500.htm

11 comments:

Gowri Mohanakrishnan said...

it isnt about what we do.
it's howe do it. the dogs were killed in a horrific way.no animal should suffer so much.
this doesnt mean i want to see stray dogs attacking and killing children either.
hope a wise solution is found and that both human and canine lives are safe in the future.

Alaphia Zoyab said...

I just finished typing out a long comment and its just vanished :(

Alaphia Zoyab said...

Okay... here goes again.
The only given in this debate is that human lives must be protected. To do that should we just round up random strays and start killing them? Thats a very short-term solution and a brutal one at that where these otherwise harmless creatures pay with their lives for the mistakes made actually by people. The Chairman of the Animal Welfare Board says, 'Where there is garbage which is food for strays, freely available, there you'll find a big stray dog menace. Scientist Ranjit Daniels says, 'dogs lost their instinct to eat meat when they were domesticated but they have still not lost their instict to hunt.' Thats exactly what happened in Bangalore. The dogs were eating meat thrown out on the street, getting increasingly aggressive and then hounded down a 9 year old girl. If despite our best efforts dogs continue to be aggressive, we should put them to sleep because we can't afford such wild creatures on our streets. But till then such brutal measures by the municipal authorities is a reflection of their own failure in another department.

Dog's Best Friend said...

It was apalling the way the dogs were murdered. Should we then hang the people who killed innocent strays too? Doesn't that warrant capital punishment?
Punish the dogs that caused the harm - don't go on a rampage and kill every dog you meet along the way.
I think what is needed is a basic respect for life - did you hear about the park in Chicago where the geese population is increasing and the birds are pooping all over the place? They're planning to invade the nests of the geese this summer, shake all the eggs violently so the babies won't survive - in order to control the population. Have you ever heard of anything so barbaric? What happened to co-existing with nature? On the one hand people are worrying about global warming and deforestation and on the other we are randomly killing animals. I don't get it.
Killing is not the answer to anything. It is certainly not the answer to controlling the stray dog 'menace'
That said...Rajiiiiii...how are you? Its been soooo long - we worked together at MT. :-) won't tell you my name though except that I was alaphia's neighbour :-)
So good to see you in the blog world...sorry for rambling on and on...

RAJI MUTHUKRISHNAN said...

Yesterday I briefly caught a report on NDTV which showed the mother of an eight month old baby, bitten and killed by a stray dog in Hyderabad. Now how does one decide a dog is harmless or not - does one have to wait for anothr child to be killed?
However I am glad that you all- Gardenia, Alaphia and Dog's best friend, concede that human lives are more precious. Coexisting with nature is all vey well - but only insofar as human lives, especially children's, are not exposed to danger.I agree totally that no life, human or otherwise, should be taken mercilessly, like the geese in Chicago, which pose no danger to humans .

Dog's Best Friend said...

Agreed that we can't wait for dogs to bite another baby ...but do we kill all dogs in anticipation? ABC - the Animal Birth COntrol program is the answer - it makes the dogs more docile and puppy population is controlled - doesnt that sound like a more humane solution?
Sooooooo Rajiiiiiii...I still have your VSNL ID - still active? I'll mail you...

Dog's Best Friend said...

Annnnd I have a two year old and my heart goes out to the people who lost their kids in this bizarre way...I can imagine their rage at the vicious dogs that did this but that anger cannot be directed at every dog...thats my point

Dog's Best Friend said...

And now I'm officially going to stop making the same point over and over again...

Karthik Narayan said...

ok... there seems to be a reunion out here of the MT gang!!! hmmm i feel kinda outa place then lol.. nice blog. just wanted to let u know that am a dog lover - but dogs are'nt meant to be let loose and aggressive like that. As always we come to my oft repeated "viewpoint" - man is the only reason for his own destruction.

heckler said...

do dog lovers kill mosquito(e)s?

Groucho gawks said...

If we have to be fair to all forms of life , we should stop wearing or buying leather products, eating meat or even eggs for that matter, wearing silk and I could go on. This is a slippery slope argument.
The stray dogs will have to be cleaned out and agree with Gardenia that this can be done in a humane way.