And then there was one...

The other day, yet another street dog was run over by a car near our house. I stopped to ask the two watchmen nearby, the only people outside in the afternoon heat, if anything could be done for the unfortunate animal. “A change of law would be good,” said one of them. I asked why? The story they told me gave me food for thought.

It all started when a street dog gave birth to three puppies in winter this year. The watchmen finally had something to do to pass time during their long working hours. “We looked after them, brought them milk and found gunny bags for them to be warm at night,” they said. The puppies soon became popular with the neighbourhood children who’d stop to feed and play with them on the way to the park every evening. One morning, the mother just wouldn’t stop crying. It turned out all her puppies were missing. The watchmen said that perhaps some of the children who played with them had taken the puppies home. “We thought it was for the best,” they told me. “They were too young to survive the long winter nights outdoors.”

But all hell broke loose that evening. Local animal lovers accused the watchmen of selling the puppies. The police was brought in to register a case against them as separating puppies less than 40 days old from their mother amounted to animal cruelty. The watchmen were flummoxed by the turn of events. 

“The puppies were not ours to look after,” they said. “Neither were they ours to give away.” They were unaware of animal cruelty laws in India. Moreover, both were convinced that their adoption gave the puppies a better chance of survival. As the animal lovers became more and more aggressive, the men decided the unpleasantness wasn’t worth it. “We’re poor migrants,” they told me. “People like us can’t afford to mess with the police.” So the next evening, when the same children passed by on their way to the park, they asked them to return the puppies. 

The very next day, puppy number one was killed by a speeding car. “We were devastated,” they said. “Having watched the puppies being born, seeing one die in front of our eyes was horrible.” Later, after the two surviving puppies became 40 days old, the children who had taken them earlier didn’t want them anymore. 

Two months later, puppy number two was also run over and killed. This time, the watchmen were furious at the animal activists. “They ‘protected’ the puppies from children willing to adopt them,” they said, “instead of sheltering them from the elements and the dangers on the road.” The animal activists, so vociferous when it came to ‘rescuing’ the puppies, were oddly silent. “They would have sent us to jail for animal cruelty,” muttered one of the watchmen, “but have done nothing against the drivers who have run them over.” 

We silently watched the mother with her one remaining offspring, now almost as large as her, wondering what fate had in store for them. There are no easy answers when it comes to the management of stray canines in cities. For humans might have spent millennia domesticating animals, they still haven’t learnt to peacefully coexist with them.