Dog lovers act irresponsibly, cause big harm to society: HC

Nagpur: Expressing grave concern over growing menace of stray dogs, the Nagpur bench of Bombay high court has observed that some of the strays made little children and babies targets of unwarranted aggression.
“They had attacked, injured and mauled children and babies, and in some stray incidents even killed them. There was an urgent need for controlling their scourge and it continues till date. The citizenry of Nagpur cries and pleads with the (civic) authorities to perform their duty to do something to effectively control the danger posed by these creatures. In the past, the authorities had taken certain steps to control their nuisance, but those are inadequate to eliminate it or even reduce it,” a division bench of justices Sunil Shukre and Anil Pansare said.
Flaying animal lovers, the judges said they continue to behave irresponsibly, thus increasing problems for the civic authorities in controlling these dogs. “These citizens posing themselves as sympathizers and friends of stray dogs leave their houses on two and four wheelers carrying loads of food items meant for distribution amongst the street dogs. They make their stops in different localities, offer food packets and different titbits to such dogs unmindful of the big harm that they are doing to society. These supposed friends do not realise the disastrous consequences of their charity.”
Adding that many such canines become insolent due to goodies provided by the animal lovers, the bench said they get even more violent towards human beings in general and children in particular. “If these so-called friends of stray dogs are really interested in their protection and welfare, they must adopt and take them home. At least, they can put them in some good shelter homes and bear all the expenses for their registration with municipal authorities and towards their maintenance, health and vaccination.”
Emphasizing that the real charity lies in taking complete care of such dogs, the judges advised the animal lovers that just feeding and then leaving tje poor creatures to fend for themselves would not be enough.
“This is the most basic duty a benevolent person must perform if s/he has real compassion for these strays. But these so-called friends shy away from performing this basic duty and the result is uncontrolled growth in population and nuisance of stray dogs. Of course, this is not to say that there is something wrong about the view that dogs generally are the best friend of man, but this has to be taken with circumspection when it comes to strays and which are not kept as pets.”
# What HC said
* Urgent need for controlling stray dogs’ scourge for the city
* Animal lovers continue to behave irresponsibly by feeding them
* It often leads to increase in problems for civic authorities
* Dogs’ friends don’t realise disastrous consequences of charity
* They should put dogs in shelter homes and bear all expenses
* Real charity lies in taking complete care of such street dogs