Dogs across the country, both pets and strays, seem to be in attack mode. Just last week several such attacks were reported from Kerala, which has a total of 3 lakh strays. The Supreme Court has taken notice. The next hearing is on September 28. Meanwhile, in Ghaziabad, an 11-year-old was attacked by a pit bull, leaving him with some 150 stitches on his face. In July, in Lucknow, another pit bull mauled its 80-year-old owner to death. There was a second attack this week, again in Lucknow, prompting owners to abandon their pit bulls. Some have been left tied to trees.
Meanwhile, Peta – People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals — has called for a ban on the breed. In the NCR, several attacks by pet dogs have taken place in lifts. Safe to say that when in an NCR apartment block, just take the stairs. RWAs, MCD and pet-owners are refusing to see eye to eye. It’s not just the pit bulls though, which are the culprits. In Delhi, a beagle and a Labrador, too, joined in the action.
I’ve no idea where the pit bull fascination came from, but in the past certain breeds of dogs have ‘trended’ in the homes of the Indian middle-classes because of the movies. In 1994, Hum Aapke Hain Kaun’s Tuffy started the trend of the white Indian spitz. They were yappy and bad-tempered. One would go to visit someone and the first 15 minutes were spent in this strange charade where the visitor would be petrified, while the owner would insist, ‘He will not do anything.’ And then the little spitz would grab your trouser leg and refuse to let go.
101 Dalmatians was another film that set off the fashion of Indians keeping dalmatians as pets. Like pit bulls, they are not the easiest to handle in small flats, and many were later cruelly abandoned.
My experience with Indian strays has been mixed. Wherever I’ve been, there have always been two friendly strays in the lane I’m in, one confident and outgoing, the other diffident. They always move together, act together and are protective of those who live in the lane. But the rest hunt in packs at night. A friend living in DDA flats in a south Delhi neighbourhood couldn’t step out at night without carrying a couple of home-made weapons.
These packs of strays are fed by good-hearted animal lovers who themselves never come out at night. The Supreme Court has observed that those who feed these strays should be made responsible for vaccinating them and should bear the costs if they attack someone, which is easier said than done.
During the pandemic, I saw a curious change in the behaviour of strays. Usually, they behave like mice in the day and become tigers at night. But during the pandemic, it became difficult to cycle, ride a scooter or walk past them, even at high noon. The empty streets brought out the worst aggression in them. It wasn’t that they were not being fed. The same good Samaritans still turned up in the evenings. It was almost like they were emboldened by the eerie silence that prevailed in lockdown.
In England, I was amazed at how polite pet dogs were. They would never bark when you rang the doorbell. They’d walk over politely, and disinterestedly sniff you when you entered someone’s house. When they went out with their owners, they would often be leashless and walk alongside their ‘parents’, across the zebra crossing, by the river, in the park. Maybe they would read PG Wodehouse at home, too.