Understanding stray dogs and ways to promote healthy human-stray relationships
Curious about stray dogs? Wondering how to improve the human-stray situation in India? Or are you questioning if there are any ethical dog repellent devices in the market? Well, you’re totally at the right place.
After all, before we resort to making any sweeping judgements about stray dogs, we first need to know what’s behind the human-stray conflict. Because let’s be real, it’s not like dogs have their own UN meeting where they’ve decided to go all out on humans. Just like any other friendship, it doesn’t always have to be the fault of either party to grow apart. Maybe it’s just about not checking up on your best friend enough, who knows? So let’s find out and check up on man’s best friend.
In this article, we, at OhMyGuard, have painted a picture of the current crisis and the ways we can promote a healthy human-stray relationship. Guess what we’re trying to do is answer the greatest philosophical question of the 21st century — who let the dogs out?
What are the factors behind the human-stray conflict?
Before you start Googling ‘dog repellent device reviews’, let’s figure out the factors that have led us to the problem in the first place.
- Depleting space and resources
- Lack of sterilisation programmes
- Hunger and negative feeding experiences
- Lack of awareness on human-dog interaction
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Depleting space and resources
First things first, the historical relationship between dogs and humans has been well-researched and documented. We’ve literally evolved together. However, due to rapid urbanisation and lack of land and resources, strays have lately been pushed to the corner. That means, most strays are clueless as to where to go. So they end up in packs in our neighbourhoods. Or found sleeping on top of the roof of a car. Or entering your compound. The reason why you might be looking for devices to keep dogs out of your yard. A common sight for folks in Delhi, isn’t that right?
Hunger and negative feeding experiences
Surprise, surprise! In order to survive, stray dogs need food. But here’s the thing, strays mostly depend on discarded human food. It’s why you often see a crowd of strays at your nearest garbage dump like it's an ‘indie’ music concert.
And sure, sharing food, or feeding your local strays, is effective and the least we can do for them. But how many times have we seen a news article (or a pixelated video on X) with building uncles shouting and abusing young people who were merely feeding the strays? Add all these factors up, and it’s no surprise that it creates stress, fear, and desperation in dogs. And that again, results in a rise of stray attacks. So who let the dogs out? Umm, well, us.
Lack of sterilisation programmes
Having said that, it’s also true that there are one too many stray dogs in a single area. That also leads to a further lack of food and what not. So it’s only reasonable to expect your local municipality to conduct sterilisation programmes to curb overpopulation. Also, unlike millennials, they don’t really stop after two kids. Let’s just say they’re more into your grandpa’s times. Ever wonder how most of you have half a dozen uncles and aunties? Well, there you go.
Lack of awareness on human-dog interaction
Apart from the odd unprovoked attacks by strays, a lot of these dog aggressions are provoked by people due to ignorance (and sometimes, a lack of empathy!). One should avoid teasing or worse, mistreatment or cruelty at all costs. Most fearful or aggressive doggos are such because they’ve had negative experience with humans before. In that case, you can’t really blame them right? After all, you don’t kick your best friend if they order sushi instead of your favourite biryani, right? At least, we hope so.
What are the ways of promoting healthy human-stray relationships?
Sure, using the best dog repellers is one way. But before we get to that, let's look at other practices that we can incorporate for a better human-stray dynamic.
- Feeding strays or community kitchens
- Stricter laws for animal rights
- Being a responsible pet parent
- Using non-invasive dog repellent devices
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Feeding strays or community kitchens
If all of us took the effort of feeding a single stray dog, not only would they have to go without an empty stomach, but it would also develop a friendly relationship between us and them.
Another way to do the same thing would be to have a community kitchen to feed the strays. These community kitchens could be an office canteen or a housing society where every person contributes a small amount to get the food prepared. Plus, at the end of it, who wouldn’t enjoy the sight of a doggo wagging their tail in joy when they come home from office?
Stricter laws for animal rights
You don’t need to be a genius to understand stricter laws could curb animal cruelty. Like seriously, the penalty for cruelty against animals is just, well, 50 rupees. That isn’t exactly strict, is it? Especially given the fine for flying a kite in India is 10 lakhs. Well, something’s really really off, don’t you think?
Being a responsible pet parent
When you have a pet doggo, you also have to be careful when you go out to public spaces. For example, one shouldn’t just let their dog defecate in their society campus and leave it there. That only builds up more tension in other residents, leading to more ignorant disliking towards both strays and pets. On top of that, in order to avoid conflict between your doggo with other humans or doggos, you can always use the best dog repellent devices too.
Using non-invasive dog repellent devices
Speaking of dog repellers, there are many harmless and non-invasive devices out there. Out of them, an electronic device is best to keep. Given it only uses ultrasonic sound (inaudible to humans) to train your own dog or to warn other dogs to stay out of your way. Now, that’s a win-win situation, isn’t it?