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The Indian dogs commonly called as desi dogs or Indian native dogs or street dogs, have many common breeds native to the subcontinent. They can be seen in every area across the country with different local names according to the area, and exhibit different appearance and size depending on temperature, terrain and other climatic factors. These are all mixed breed dogs or urban landraces. These dogs have been neglected and subject to obloquy since decades, although they are fighters in terms of genetic makeup and resilience to diseases. Desi dogs have been with the human civilization from late Stone Age, approximately 12,000-15,000 years back. These dogs are called free-ranging dogs and survive on waste from human settlements. They are a part of Indian mythology and folklore, and are integral part of art, culture and heritage. These breeds have originated out of natural selection rather than selective breeding, and possess characteristics that are essential for their survival in their local environment.

To understand and highlight the evolution of practices used in controlling stray dog population. Free-roaming dogs in a large number is a concern across the globe because of the risks posed for public health and animal welfare. We describe the methods for controlling dog population, endemic to a particular region, and assess their effectiveness.

Due to the free-roaming nature of these dogs, transmission of rabies and other zoonotic pathogens create a great public health issue where these dogs exist in high densities (4, 5, 6). They also have immense poor health and welfare conditions, due to inadequate diet and a high prevalence of starvation and dehydration (7, 8), since they depend directly or indirectly on human waste due to lack of availability of food (9). Stray dogs also lack veterinary care such as vaccination or antiparasitics and are therefore more susceptible to high prevalence of skin conditions and ectoparasites and diseases.  To add to their misery they are exposed to injury caused by road traffic accidents, abusive treatment by locals (10). Such cases are very prevalent where poisoning, electrocution, drowning, or carbon monoxide poisoning are used as means of removal of dogs (11).

Methods applied to control dog population
Controlling stray dog population includes culling, fertility control, and sheltering. In guiding future dog population management involves understanding the effectiveness of each of these methods. For managing dog population different groups like researchers, animal welfare organisations, and government agencies are often responsible (12). Two primary ways, of culling, and fertility control, are applied to manage the free-roaming dogs’ population (13).
A. Mass destruction
In developing countries mass removal of dogs is practised to control the large populations of free-roaming dogs, such as in many South Asian countries, although there is a religious sentiment against killing animals, in much of these countries. The methods applied by civic authorities for dog removal are very inhumane from an animal welfare perspective. This creates a hostile environment between the government functionaries charged with collecting dogs and the dichotomising population. People are always divided into two groups, one strongly advocating the removal of all dogs from the streets and other resisting the culling policies.
B. Culling
Culling is the killing of individual dogs for the purpose of population reduction. For discouraging the use of culling, The World Health Organisation published guidelines in 1990 recommending alternative methods like registration and identification, vaccination, public education, and sterilisation (14). In developed countries, injectable barbiturates are more commonly used, while poisoning and shooting are often used by developing or poor countries. (13).
The Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) too exterminated street dogs. Figures available through Right to Information Act petitions show that 4, 49,568 dogs were killed by the MCGM in the decade between 1984 and 1994. In 1994, however, the MCGM admitted the lack of effectiveness of this methodology in a circular (MCGM, Health Dept., 1994): “Hitherto this department adopted a system of catching and killing stray dogs to control their population as part of our measure to control the dreaded disease ‘rabies’ and for many years now we have killed about 45,000 stray dogs every year. In spite of killing so many dogs every year, we have not been able to bring down their population in Greater Bombay.”(21)
In many places, dogs are caught and displaced to some central facility to be killed where poisoning is not used, while the techniques used at these facilities are really barbaric. After taking to the central depot, they may be electrocuted, gassed, or drowned. In the city of Vishakhapatnam, the caged dogs were doused with water and the metal cage connected to the electrical supply to electrocute the animals en masse. Due to overcrowding, many animals are not in contact with the metal fabric of the cage, with some animals taking many minutes before expiring. Many, who were not killed in the ordeal, were clubbed to death. In Delhi a similar effort at dog removal killed a third of the strays, with no evidence of long-term reduction in the dog population (22).
There has also been no long-term effect on the population of Kathmandu’s street dogs even after being poisoned for at least the last 50 years. In Chennai, the municipal authorities’ dog-culling program had been in operation for the past 120 years (22). Every year the Hong Kong government kills approximately twenty thousand dogs and another thirteen thousand are killed by welfare organizations, in an operation that has been described as “annual harvesting”, similar to that practiced in wild animal control in Africa, with little impact on the free-roaming dog population (23).
While violent killing is uncouth, few poisons are humane in action. Strychnine is distressing to the poisoned animal, it causes respiratory arrest through paralysis of the respiratory muscles. Some of the most thorough animal welfare legislation in the world is in India, and even where laws do exist, as in much of the developing world they are poorly enforced, even in India. Although proper procedure is laid down by law, which involves catching the free-roaming dog in a large sack (24), most municipal dogcatchers do not comply with that and us other methods to capture strays. Long iron tongs, similar to very large fire tongs, are used to grab by whichever part of their body they get hold off, leading to penetrating injuries of soft tissues. Throughout most of India, the animals are lassoed with chains or ropes which causes partial or complete loss of consciousness, due to the noose, leading to cerebral anoxia through occlusion of the carotid and other arteries to the brain. After cruelly getting hold of the dog, the dogcatcher must then move the animal into a suitable vehicle for transport to central depots. The dog in the sack method involves carrying the sac to the vehicle and then emptying it into the vehicle. While using the tongs method, the dog is lifted up by the tongs and put in the vehicle. Sometimes for the catcher’s convenience, the tail or a hind leg is often held by an assistant, and the animal is stretched to reduce struggling. The catcher will then whirl the animal around his head on the end of the noose before releasing it airborne into the catching vehicle. Often catching teams carry baton with which to beat the uncontrollable animal. Once caught, the animals may be held for many hours, even days, usually without food or water in the vehicle. Usually a caged vehicle is filled to its maximum capacity, making them stand one on another. (14)
C. Sterilization
Surgical or chemical sterilisation or contraception are used for fertility control. The predominant method of fertility control is catch-neuter-release (CNR) after surgical sterilisation (15, 16, 17). Spay or castration surgery is carried out in either a fixed-location or mobile clinic. CNR has been carried out in several states of India (18, 19, 20). Surgical sterilization of dogs and cats is one of the most commonly performed procedures in veterinary practice, and is done as a method of contraception to aid in the stray overpopulation problem, as well as to prevent diseases associated with the reproductive system, such as mammary neoplasia or benign prostatic hyperplasia. The various surgical sterilization techniques include traditional midline ovariohysterectomy, lateral flank ovariohysterectomy, castration, early age gonadectomy, ovariectomy, laparoscopic ovariohysterectomy and ovariectomy, and vasectomy (25).

Mass removal of dogs has been vindicated as an ineffective means of controlling the stray population or the spread of diseases such as rabies. It is unfortunate to have such practices posing very serious welfare implications for the dogs concerned. Due to their high reproductive potential and the continuing presence of an empty biological niche with unexploited resources, dog-removal programs do not control the dog population or the various diseases and nuisances. More puppies are born to the surviving animals, and more of them survive, as more dogs migrate into the area recently rendered dog-free.

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