There are about 400-600 million stray dogs in the world according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Lack of food leads to starvation and makes life on the streets difficult. The dogs are almost always suffering from illnesses and injuries caused by inhumane handling, dog fights or traffic accidents leading to protracted sufferings. The management of these stray dogs is a big problem in many countries, regarding the dogs’ welfare, but also regarding people’s health, in that the dogs can spread diseases, primarily rabies. Approximately 30,000 people die of rabies each year and dogs constitute the main source of contamination. 95% of these cases occur in Asia and Africa.
As both the knowledge and the political will is missing in many places to make use of humane methods, such as spay/neutering programs, the stray dogs therefore are hunted and killed by cruel methods. Either authorities put poison out on the streets – which children and owned dogs are at risk for – and the poison leads to a painful death for the dogs, or they beat the dogs to death on the streets in everyone’s sight. Animal friends and children are traumatized in becoming witnesses to these gruesome scenes. Many dogs are also caught by dog catchers and the dogs are placed in municipal shelters, often without access to either food or veterinary care for the damages incurred. After a time the dogs are killed by methods described above. There is practically no stray dogs that are killed humanely.
Capturing the dogs is often associated with significant economic benefits in the form of government grants, or EU grants, for those involved since the corruption is widespread in many of the countries which have stray dogs. Government officials, for example, own shelters and therefore have an interest in being able to continue capturing dogs instead of solving the problem in a humane and effective way.
The reason why there are stray dogs roaming the streets is because the owners have abandoned their dogs due to small living spaces or economical shortcomings. It is also common to leave the dog outside on the street while the owner is at work. As the dogs aren’t castrated, constantly matings occur. Many owned dogs are also abandoned for other various reasons; dogs are considered to be poor as guard or hunting dogs, or the owner simply got tired of the dog.
Some stray dogs are fed by animal caring people and these dogs usually do quite well. Many of the locals in different countries, however, consider the dogs as a scourge and take out their aggressions towards them. These acts of cruelty to animals often receive no sanction in form of fines or imprisonment.
