Why incidents of dogs killing children and livestock are rising in India
The most successful animal on earth is the human being. The second most successful animal is the human’s best friend, the dog.
Cuddly, loyal, loving, playful, enthusiastic, forgiving: those are usually the richly intense terms that people use for dogs. There’s no companion animal like the dog — the domestic dog has co-evolved with people and considers humans to be part of its pack. If treated as pets, dogs will love and protect “their pack” — their human family. Pet dogs have given their lives for their owners, and will stick by their pack through thick and thin. Unlike any other animal, people talk about dogs like they are people — for most, the loss of a dog is the loss of a family member.
Yet, dogs also hit the headlines for much more gruesome reasons — 14 children have been killed by dogs in Sitapur district in Uttar Pradesh. Some others have been injured. This is not an isolated incident: dogs are increasingly chasing down both people and livestock. Dogs are also the third biggest mammalian predator of wildlife — they chase, hunt, disturb and transmit disease to wildlife, eating up birds, antelopes, hares, turtles, deer, eggs, and anything else they can find.
There are two questions here: one, how do “cuddly” dogs become predators, and two, what do we do about it? These two questions need to be looked at together, because the answer for both is the same. In clear words: people are wholly responsible for the dangers that dogs pose today.
The first question first. Do dogs kill? While one may find it hard to believe that dogs can hunt down people or other animals--similar questions have been asked on the Sitapur incidents, blaming "mysterious animals" for the killing — the biological fact is that the dog is both a predator and a carnivore. If not taken responsibility for, a dog can and will hunt, with increasingly lurid consequences. Biology does not point fingers — animals are what they are, and predators will predate — that does not make them any worse than say, a vegetarian bunny that munches on grass and flowers.
A follow-up thought would be: many animals kill people, how does that make dogs any different? The answer is enmeshed with the question of what we must do. The domestic dog was created by people, domesticated from the wolf. The edge the dog has over other predators is the familiarity it feels with people, honed over thousands of years of co-evolution. A dog can hunt at nearly any time, and regardless of the physical closeness of human beings. It often has a lack of fear of man. Compare this to any other wild animal which does not have the benefit of familiarity — even a tiger known to kill people will stay away from groups of people.
So, what do we need to do?
Dogs that hunt people and wildlife need complete removal from site. Sterilisation does not help in such cases. Sterilisation of dogs proven to hunt may lessen the numbers, but not the threat.
This leads us to an associated issue — what of free-ranging dogs that are partially fed by people? If you tell someone her friendly Browny or Tommy is hunting birds, you may face complete incredulousness. It’s like telling a parent their kid does drugs on weekends. But free-ranging dogs do often hunt, even if they are fed. Having dogs on the road, given food but not a home or hearth, also leads to puppies getting run over and exposure to temperature extremes and disease. For those who love dogs with passion — this author included — the answer lies in taking responsibility for dogs.
“The goal of any policy for the management and welfare of dogs — for that matter any domestic animals — should be to ensure that the only dogs that exist should be those owned by people. We cannot have ownerless dogs. There should be a piece of paper linking each owned dog to a person to hold that person accountable for the actions of the dog. We need to take responsibility for the dogs we feed. These dogs need to be confined. If they are hunting, they must be immediately captured and confined,” says wildlife conservationist Aditya Panda.
Some would say not all dogs hunt. This may be true. But enough dogs are hunting.
Dogs that hunt will need to be put down or confined. For some others, people can adopt and take responsibility, individually or with the help of a community. For the rest, the humane solution would be to open nationwide shelters and give dogs lifetime care, post sterilisation. This will require huge investment, but can be accomplished through crowdfunding, individual and government-led investment. On priority should be problem dogs.
Mark Twain famously said: “If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.”
This is true. Dogs are incredible creatures. The fact that they hunt does not mean the entire species needs to be demonised and clubbed to death in acts of revenge. It does mean though, that we need to find solutions to a problem we have created. Not taking responsibility for Canis lupus familiaris is shunning tens of thousands of years of shared history. It is also an act of immense cruelty — to both dog and man.