When Abodh Aras walks on the streets of Mumbai, the city’s stray dogs unfailingly greet
him with a strong sense of recognition - many times, to the surprise of passers-by.
When I was a kid, I used to see dogs being taken away, dogs in our neighborhood, dogs
that we knew as Tommy or Blacky, and the municipality used to take them away and kill them.
We realized that why should this be done when there are alternatives.
For 22 years, Aras and his NGO, the Welfare of Stray dogs have been working towards the
alternative.
Every Sunday, one of the many routines they follow religiously, is to provide first aid
to about 20 dogs in the Fort area of south Mumbai.
Earlier the municipal corporation used to kill them because they thought it was the
only way it could bring down rabies or the stray dog population.
For me, this 22 year old journey is a long-term relationship.
And every time a dog passes away, a part of me dies.
Stray dogs in Mumbai, who typically belong to the indigenous Pariah breed, have had a
rough history.
They were considered a nuisance, and a threat - because they are potential carriers of the
rabies virus.
In the early 90s, it was organizations like Aras’ that fought hard for their right to
be treated humanely.
The way it used to work was - dogs used to be kept for 3 days by the municipal corporation
in a dog pound, and if nobody claimed them, the used to electrocute them.
We convinced the municipal corporation with figures of rabies deaths have not gone down,
the street dog population has not gone down - that let us try an alternative which was
a scientific humane method of controlling the dog population - which is what we call
an animal birth control program, or which is what we call sterilization or spay-neuter.
It wasn’t until 2001, that a set of rules, under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
act, made it mandatory for local governments to sterilize stray dogs instead of killing
them.
But a lack of infrastructure and funds has meant that it has fallen upon NGOs to control
and maintain the stray dog's population in Mumbai.
Welfare of Stray Dogs now sterilizes and vaccinates close to 300 dogs a month.
What this means is that there are fewer stray dogs and fewer packs – and so they are healthier
and friendlier.
Yet, one of the biggest challenges for Aras is to get people to see stray dogs in a different
light.
I think what we call stray dogs are actually not stray per se.
The world health organization will call them is 'free-roaming pets'.
They are pets of the underprivileged, the policemen, the hawker, the person who lives
on the street.
So they are the ones who look after them, give them names.
Uma Khan cares for 9 such free-roaming pets, who live with her in a makeshift shelter on
one of the city’s streets.
She works as a housemaid, and makes just enough to feed her family of 2, and her adopted dogs.
But it hasn’t been easy.
Like Uma, there are many others who are part of a relentless but silent army of dog carers
in the city.
Every evening, Shilpa Bej cooks for 28 dogs in her locality.
A local feeder she has employed then carries the tightly packed lunch-boxes to the dogs
eagerly waiting for their day’s meal.
It is a big responsibility.
Of course, we knew about it, so People’s perception around street dogs has
changed where earlier they used to just see a street dog being taken away, sterilized
and put back.
Now they see people coming an vaccinating them, they see our animal nurses coming and
treating them.
So they think that at least if these dogs are not harmful, then they are not harmful
to us.
And they are not.
So they’ve realized that this is the best way that street dogs and humans can live in
harmony.