📢 February is spay & neuter awareness month. Spay & neuter is the
scientific and sustainable solution to coexist with stray dogs and then watch
their population decline as they complete their life span.
But was spay & neuter really ever our priority
in India❓
1️⃣There are places wherein there are no Animal
Birth Control Centres in India
2️⃣If there are centres, most of them operate
without accountability and serve as the nodal centres for butchery in the name
of spay & neuter
Those concerned about the rot in the system wrote
to the Animal Welfare Board of India that responded with copy and pasted
notices to the respective Municipal Corporations and State Department of Animal
Husbandry and Dairying. The matter died there and then because no one bothered
to respond to those so called notices.
Others didn't even bother to report because either
they had to remain in the good books of everyone in animal advocacy in order to
survive this unregulated industry or they benefitted with an uptick in the
population of stray dogs.
But how❓ Animal Welfare Organizations and the Municipal Corporations fully
understand that dislocation and killing does not reduce the population. But,
doing so alters the dog-dog and dog-human dynamics negatively, which acts as a
fertile ground for dog bites and also an increase in population, which serves
their purpose of eternal dog removal calls and continued money for spay and
neuter in the absence of oversight.
Moreover, check WhatsApp groups. The majority have
always been about either a laundry list of pups available for adoption, appeal
for rescue or a fund raising appeal for 9 in 1 vaccines for pups. While all
these activities amount to welfare, consider the scenario;
What if they had appealed beforehand to fundraise
for spay/neuter, there wouldn't be a need to fund raise for 9 in 1 vaccines for
pups.
But, since the Indian puppy mill system only
entitles pups for adoption, unsterilised dogs have always meant ready supply of
pups to be put for adoption. How on earth does increasing the population of
pups up their odds of homing?
🟢If population is
contained, half of the need for rescue wouldn't arise and far lesser would be
the need to look for homes! It is common sense.
Therefore, what we may term as welfare, need not
necessarily actually be welfare. If our priority was really spay and neuter, we
would have pushed for transparency in the Animal Birth Control Programme. But
no, we all have our vested interests instead of true well being of animals and
better public health outcomes.
🔴We all are equally
responsible for the mess that stray dogs are in today.
📙Yet, as always, the mission
to spread awareness about spay and neuter continues. How is it doable in the
Indian scenario? The handbook was written with the precise purpose in 2022 https://www.amazon.in/stray-become-mans-best-friend-ebook/dp/B0BJ97CGF1
From left; Vaijanti, Hugo, Damyanti and
Chashmewali, all sterilised & vaccinated against rabies.
