Should they die on the streets or rot in a shelter?

Recently, a team from the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) inspected a house in Velachery in Chennai after a resident filed a case for loud barking and posing a threat to public health. More than 140 dogs were found and seized in the home. The Tamil Nadu Animal Welfare Board (TNAWB) conducted a similar raid on an illegally run farm in Coimbatore and rescued abused animals.

One of the most shocking was an inspection of a Blue Cross of India shelter, Chennai, in March. TNAWB said it found carcasses of puppies and kittens in backpacks and reported multiple violations and a lack of data. The number of raids on shelters and homes housing animals has increased over the years. While agencies conducting such raids say this is a final step after multiple warnings and done on the basis of complaints, shelters claim they are conducted unfairly and there is no clarity about rules being broken.

In the Velachery case, the homeowner says the animals were well cared for, but TNAWB found the dogs were unneutered.

In the case of Blue Cross, TNAWB says they have taken action over time based on several complaints they received. A representative of the board says that the inspection is not done by one person, but by a committee made up of livestock farmers, regional directors and veterinarians, and that the Blue Cross, which has sufficient resources, “has no excuse for including animals as they cannot guarantee their safety.” safety”.

“We receive 800 calls a day and attend 150 of them,” said Chinny Krishna, chairman of Blue Cross Chennai. “People leave healthy and unhealthy animals at our gates, including animals less than two weeks old. Every day the dead animals are kept in a bag to be cremated. But we would rather get them into our shelter and give them a chance to live than let them die a certain death on the streets.”

He adds that the caretakers here are doing their best because they are the only center that cares for animals infected with rabies and the highly contagious canine distemper.

Shravan Krishnan of Besant Memorial Animal Dispensary (BMAD), Chennai, says mortality rates among puppies and kittens are high even in well-maintained shelters as they require constant monitoring. The solution, he says, is not to burden shelters with healthy animals so they can focus on sick and injured animals.

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“We have installed CCTV cameras outside the BMAD gates to identify those who abandon animals. Change will only begin when you take a closer look at such people. There also need to be changes at the policy level when it comes to animal abandonment,” he says.

A positive development, says Shravan, is that more and more people and organizations are now involved in rescuing and treating injured and sick stray animals. “But raids are necessary to control possible atrocities.”

While there are clear guidelines from the Animal Welfare Board of India on veterinary care to be provided to animals in a shelter, there seems to be ambiguity on other aspects such as the number of animals allowed, veterinarians required and disposal of carcasses .

The TNAWB representative says it is time for the GCC to impose rules on the number of animals one person or an NGO can keep so that “people will follow the rules in the future even if nothing can be done about existing situations ”.

“There is a fine line between rescue and hoarding,” says Shravan. “Cramming a hundred dogs into an apartment is not welfare. We also receive an unmanageable number of calls every day, but we don’t take more than we can handle. We are now choosing the most critical cases.”

Sally Varma, who has been in the animal welfare industry for 15 years, says shelters must maintain a ratio of animal intake to production. “Shelters should never become dumping grounds for healthy animals,” she says. A long-term solution, according to Sally, should include large-scale awareness programs, including responsible pet ownership to prevent abandonment, encouraging Indian adoption, implementing pet store and breeding regulations, and properly implementing animal contraceptive programs to reduce the number of animals. stray dogs on the street. “The public should refrain from separating young puppies from mothers and bringing them to shelters with the idea of ’saving’ them, as animals separated from their mothers prematurely are unlikely to survive.”

A government vet says AWBI needs a new set of rules for shelters. “Although there are no rules regarding the number of veterinarians required, shelter management must realize that five or six veterinarians are not enough for 500 animals.”

GCC veterinarian J Kamal Hussain says rules will soon be made on how many animals can be allowed in a house or space. “We will make it mandatory for dog owners to register dogs and apply for permits for them.”

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