The Welfare of Stray Dogs

The Welfare of Stray Dogs (WSD) is an animal welfare NGO carrying out the Animal Birth Control programme of sterilizing and vaccinating stray dogs in Mumbai. The objectives of this programme are to control the population of stray dogs and more importantly to reduce human rabies deaths. Our other activities include an on-site first-aid programme, rabies awareness & immunization drives, education and awareness programme and adoption Programme.

Stray Dogs were being killed by the municipal corporations in order to bring down their population and reduce human rabies deaths. Killing of stray dogs did not achieve these two objectives as the authorities failed to understand dog behaviour and the reason why stray dogs exist in urban environments.

Stray dogs exist in urban environments because of two reasons. They are the pets of the slum and street dwellers and they have food availability in the form of garbage. Dogs being territorial also used to immediately fill the vacuum created due to their removal. Thus there was no change in the stray dog population or reduction in human rabies deaths for more than 50 years though the number of stray dogs killed by the BMC went on increasing

WSD was established in 1985 with the objective of having a more effective and humane system to reach the above-mentioned objectives. In 1989, WSD convinced the BMC to let it sterilize some dogs every month and the BMC did not kill them. Eventually killing of stray dogs stopped in 1994 in Mumbai and in 1998 in Navi Mumbai (WSD approached the Hon’ble Mumbai High Court to put a stay on killing of strays in Navi Mumbai and was an intervener in Mumbai)

WSD was initially allotted the ward’s A B, C and D. There is a clear visible decrease in the stray dog population and fewer complaints in these wards. WSD has so far sterilized more than 58,000 stray dogs and impacted the lives of more than one lakh and forty thousand stray dogs. We now reach out to the whole of the island city and some parts of the suburbs.