Chronic Crisis of Stray Dogs

The prescription read, ‘an infant bitten by a stray dog.’ Her infirm body had to endure the pain of swathes of injections. Restless, her father had rushed her to the super-specialty hospital at Shireenbagh, Karanagar, for treatment. Now her father is involved: his trivial business lies shut, hard-earned money spent, and gnawing restlessness earned.

This isn’t just one case, a rare unfortunate incident, but a recurring horror. I remember my parents asking me not to take some lanes, not because of crime or traffic, but because of slobbering dogs. Kids, women, men—human flesh, to be precise—are what the stray dogs increasingly prowl and prey on. In Srinagar alone, 6,519 cases of dog bites were recorded between April 2023 and March 2024. Tragic!

Try stepping out in Srinagar after dusk and you will know. There are limitless stretches where humans dare not walk freely. Right from the evening through midnight and until dawn. We are not talking about some remote places but the core spots. Take a ride with me: Malakha (Nowhatta, which falls in the heart of the old city of Srinagar); Chandapora (which stands near to the historic Jamia Masjid); Nowshera; Karanagar; Nawabazar; Hawal; Bohrikadal; Saraf-Kadal; Qamarwari; Lalchowk; etc. These places nurture stray dogs like a mother guards her kids—not letting them go.

Malakha, notably, falls en route to the JLNM Hospital at Rainawari. HOSPITAL! Just imagine having to pass the snarling packs of dogs with a patient in distress. This is not normal!

WHY IS THE DOG CRISIS GROWING?

Lack of Proper Waste Management:

This is something that has plagued the city of Srinagar for ages now. Huge piles of waste dumped at sites close to the roads have bred dogs beyond any count. The fear and anxiety induced by them is not unlike living in a community set ablaze: one misstep and you are doomed. It could have been understood if waste dumping was done in an isolated place, away from human affairs, but the dumping sites often cut across four ways, like at Bohrikadal, leaving citizens vulnerable to canine threats.

Citizens now have to bring strong sticks with them in the evening to reach home safely. What a stick would do to a pack of strong, starving dogs is another tragedy.

Massive trash bins like the one placed at Malakha attract more dogs than they can hold waste. And where there’s trash, there is reproduction. First a few puppies, then tens, then hundreds. The cycle repeats.

Lack of Civic Responsibility:

This one is connected to the first one. Public negligence, that is. While the Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) has come up with the initiative of collecting trash door-to-door by vehicular means, several people dump leftovers at roadside corners for the dogs. It’s meant to feed dogs compassionately, but the mechanism, timing, and place are all wrong. There seems to be no fine or punishment given to the people ditching waste material on the roads, thus failing to prevent canine clumps. No supervision, no spies.

Result? A full-fledged pack of dogs loitering around the pile of waste - triggering fear among the walkers, especially the elderly, women, and kids. Unchecked feeding has morphed into a hazard.

Improper Canine Management:

It amazes one to see some areas of Srinagar remarkable for their canine-free environment and some reeling under the flood of saliva-filled roads. Negligible mapping to detect the canine activity hotspots doesn’t only suck but also points to the failure in dissecting this issue and resolving the same. It’s not only sufficient to catch the dogs and drop them in some other place, considering the world-maddening mating force of living things. The disease spreads from area to area.

“Sterilization has rarely been conducted in 2025.” Elsewhere, people are battling with the question and fear of losing jobs due to automation, and here we are still wrestling with zoonotic diseases, preventable vehicular accidents caused by restless stray dogs, and traumatic dog bites. People literally run away scared as a mad, infectious stray dog runs after them. People like me have been chased and attacked. I have been in this situation many times and, while running, have found myself tipping over and going straight into a drain. First comes the fear of dogs, and then the uneasiness of infections, stench, and ruined, stained clothes.

What needs to be done?

Prioritizing public safety: 

When a common citizen fears to take a stroll in the evening safely, authorities bringing up superfluous urban schemes are hogwash. The same way rain-induced floods on the streets and even in homes in the Shehr-i-Khaas override smart city projects of Lal Chowk. No pun intended.

Public health and welfare override anything, including developmental initiatives. Here I am reminded of dogs arriving at hospitals, like JLNM at Rainawari, Kashmir University, SKIMS, and residential pockets. Immediate attention and redressal are needed.

Implementing Long-term Canine Solutions:

In addition to opting for approaches like sterilizing a few dogs, catching and dropping them from one place to another, and operating on them and making them sterile, the authorities have to take some strong alternatives in order to effectively deal with the menace. Identifying the places where intense stray dog activity happens and sheltering them in more natural habitats, forests, say.

By virtue of such strong steps, we will not only save average folks but also provide a sense of relief to the stray dogs as well.

Breaking the dog-bites-and-hospital-jabs mentality: 

We know if a stray dog bites us, there is a solution: doctors and medicines. This connection has left us paralyzed in our approach to deliberate, discuss, prioritize, and innovate creative solutions to the canine crises. Put the curtain on, and imagine yourself being bitten by a dog, with no medical helpline in sight. That image alone should fuel creative, urgent action.

Lazy thinking has kept us stuck in this loop. It’s time we revisit our thinking and acknowledge this as a full-blown public crisis.

Adopting Less Aggressive Dogs: 

Frankly, dogs are among the first animals that humans made friends with, back in the Stone Age. They care for you if you care for them. They don’t expect anything of you but food. Dogs helping humans in emergencies are galore. To coexist with them peacefully is possible. All it needs is effort on your part, while also being careful of not over-sympathizing with aggressive ones. Compassion must come with common sense. Again, no superfluous joke intended.

Bottom-line:

As I reread the prescription of an infant girl being bitten by a stray dog, I bit my tongue and cursed the inaction, sloth, and sluggishness of both the authorities and the public. A state where dogs roam inside hospitals cannot call itself civilized.

This cannot be our normal, not when the rest of the world is building homes on Mars. Not when the Netherlands became the first country with zero feral/stray dogs in 2019. We might try to emulate the success stories of countries that have controlled the menace of stray dogs, provided we have the political will, bureaucratic interest, and grassroots participation.