By James Gorman
July 30, 2019
At a neighborhood meeting on street dogs in Vadodara, a city of two million people in the Indian state of Gujarat, residents complained that the dogs were stealing shoes left on racks outside their homes.
One woman said that unfortunately, the dogs preferred new shoes, and that she had lost three pairs. I was there with Faizan Jalil, a social psychologist and the head of community engagement for Asia and Africa for the Humane Society International. He had organized this group and others like it as part of a program to improve human interactions with street dogs.
He posed a question to the group in Hindi, causing laughter and nods of recognition at a point well made. What he had said, he explained to me, was that certainly the dogs were at fault for the first theft. But when it happens three times, he said, “Who is to blame?” They agreed it was not the animals.
As a science reporter for The Times, I have written often about dogs, and their evolution, intelligence and behavior. I was in India reporting on dogs and rabies and trying to learn about the interspecies relationship in a country where an estimated 20,000 people die each year from rabies after they are bitten by infected dogs. That’s a large portion of the estimated 59,000 deaths worldwide.
Once symptoms appear, 99 percent of rabies victims die. Dr. Jalil explained to me that, although no country in the world offers more protection to street dogs, conflicts are inevitable. To reduce them, and improve rabies prevention, the Humane Society now concentrates on spay and neuter programs, which include but don’t focus on vaccination, to reduce dog populations.
The society also works to educate and listen to communities about their concerns, all with an eye to improving the situation of both dogs and humans. Dr. Jalil said that street dogs, or indis, as they are sometimes called, are sometimes loved, mostly tolerated, and occasionally hated. He counted himself among the dog lovers. The people in Vadodara were somewhere in the middle — dog likers, perhaps. They wanted less noise, but not fewer dogs. And many of them fed the dogs roti, the Indian flat bread. But it had to be buttered, they said. The dogs didn’t like it plain.
I spent about 10 days in India, and dogs of every shape and size were everywhere, and, as Dr. Jalil said, mostly ignored. Dogs just outside of the Mumbai airport caused no stir. Others lying on the sidewalk in Chinchinim, Goa, amid stores and markets, or in front of a church, seemed invisible. People walked around them, taking their presence for granted, much the way New Yorkers do with pigeons.
Of the people I spoke to, nobody admitted to hating the dogs, but their sentiments ran the gamut from annoyed to in love. At another educational meeting in Panaji, run by the nonprofit organization Mission Rabies, people complained vociferously about the danger of dogs at a crossroads at night, where they would gather in a pack and threaten motorbike riders.
Walking through a neighborhood in Chinchinim with Mission Rabies workers, one dog owner with a couple of pets said she fed the unowned street dogs, which made her neighbors mad. But, she said, she didn’t care. She invited us in for tea, and although we declined, one of her dogs followed us for a while after we left. Most owned dogs, like this one, ran free, so it was hard to say whether a dog was on its own.
I saw a few owned dogs on chains, or in cages, as well as those who ran free. And purebred dogs seem to be becoming more popular, and may be as pampered as the most treasured Manhattan lap dog.
The best story by far that I heard about dogs came from Dr. Jalil himself. He and his wife were supportive of the street dogs in their neighborhood, but never planned to have a pet. One night, he and his wife heard something banging and clawing at the door. It was a dog that he recognized from the neighborhood, and later named Julie.
“So Julie took us to this place,” he said, “a burrow sort of thing, in the park, and directed me toward that. There were four puppies, just newly born pups.” He took them all home and Julie followed. He found other homes for two of the pups, but from that time on, Julie and the other two lived with them. It seemed like a kind of destiny.
Julie has since died, Dr. Jalil said, but he still has the two pups, now grown. It has been seven years and he still recalls the experience as amazing. “It was so emotional,” he said.
He had not planned on ever owning a dog, but having been chosen, as it seemed, he could not refuse.
(The New York Times)