Gone to the dogs — Animal birth control centres across the city in dismal state

CHENNAI: The Greater Chennai Corporation’s Animal Birth Control (ABC) centres have been found to be in gross violation of Animal Birth Control (Dogs) Rules, 2001. One of the centres, at Lloyds Colony, was found to not have even a death registry for dogs. The observations were made by Advocate-commissioner A Yogeshwaran and a detailed report was submitted to the Madras High Court on January 21.

A Division Bench of Justices M Sathyanarayanan and P Rajamanickam had appointed the advocate commissioner to conduct surprise inspections of ABC centres based on a PIL filed on behalf of the Almighty Animal Care Trust. The petitioner had alleged that the centres were being maintained poorly.  During his surprise inspection on January 4, Yogeshwaran found that the Lloyds colony centre did not have a registry of dog deaths. 

The report stated that when questioned, the doctor-in-charge allegedly said deaths in the facility were ‘rare’. Interestingly, the centre recorded one bag of food everyday in their food registry although the number of dogs admitted each day varied. Each room, housing around 10 dogs, had a single food and water bowl. 

“The dogs seemed very hungry and as they were confined in a small space, there was a lot of fighting between them,” the Advocate-commissioner said in his report. The corporation runs three ABC centres- at Basin Bridge for zones 1-6, at Lloyds colony for zones 9 and 15 and at Kannamapet for zones 10 and 13. The remaining zones are covered by ABCs run by Blue Cross and by the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. 

In all three centres, the dogs were kept amidst urine and faeces, the report observed adding a strong stench emanated from the rooms. Kannamapet ABC, for instance, had a clean and well-lit entrance whereas the rooms inside were ‘extremely dirty’, the report said. 

Records accessed by the Advocate Commissioner stated that, for instance, at the Lloyds colony ABC alone 35 surgeries were said to be performed on a single day on June 30, 2018. A back-of-the-envelope calculation would show that assuming 20 minutes per surgery, roughly 11.5 hours of non-stop work per day should have been done to perform the 35 surgeries. 

The calculation assumes importance considering the fact that doctors employed on contract are paid according to the number of surgeries conducted- `100 per surgery. “It is submitted that this is impossible and in any case, conducting so many surgeries on one day raises serious questions as to the quality of care afforded,” the report said. 

No pre-surgery testing

When usually birth control surgeries are preceded by a ‘pre-surgery’ testing to assess the fitness of the dogs based on blood tests and physical examination, the Corporation performs the operation based on a mere ‘visual assessment’, the report found. 

“He agreed that pre-surgical testing will be very useful, but there is no equipment or infrastructure for the same currently,” the report quoted the doctor-in-charge of the Lloyds colony ABC as saying. Meanwhile, untrained staff assisted doctors during surgery. 

When contacted, a corporation official said that the premises are well maintained with cleaning being undertaken twice a day. He added that although there was no dedicated register, dog deaths will be marked in a general registry.