In a recent shocker, a one-year-old baby died after being mauled by a stray dog at an apartment building in Noida on Monday. The boy was hospitalised with severe injuries sustained from the dog attack, said the police. Angry residents protested after the death of the child, accusing civil bodies of failing to act on complaints related to the stray dog menace in the area. The brutal dog attack left the child’s intestines hanging out of the abdomen.

The parents were working in the society when the child was bitten by the stray. According to the residents of the society, the civic bodies are responsible for the attack as they failed to act against stray dogs despite numerous complaints. Incidents of dog attack are not confined to one particular town or district, but such incidents are reported from various nooks and corners of the country, every now and then. Uttar Pradesh, which has the largest population of stray dogs in the country, reports the maximum cases.
After this cruel incident, many people are demanding a permanent solution to this problem. Some people are saying that culling is the only way out, while according to various animal rights activists, culling is not the option for these types of attacks, instead, the Animal Birth Control (ABC) process must be followed. Animal birth control is accepted by the court and the law of other countries and states like Sikkim, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Goa have already implemented it while successfully dealing with stray dog problems. Relocation of dogs is another solution to this problem but controlling the population of stray dogs is the key.
Multiple dog attack videos keep surfacing from time to time, from across the country, showing different species of dogs attacking children and common people on the street or in residential areas. Surprisingly, these attacks do not exclusively involve stray dogs but house pets as well. A Pitbull dog attacked a six-year-old in Noida recently raising a lot of questions against the pet owners also.

The prevention of cruelty to animals act of 1961 as well as the 2001 birth control rules can be the solution to this problem. But the ABC programme is not implemented efficiently by the local self-governing bodies; this is the reason why these incidents are very common in our country. We need to reach out to people and develop a safe environment for the happy coexistence of dogs and humans, as we know dogs are naturally man’s best friends. They have been with us since the stone age. The authorities as well as the animal activists must come together for a permanent solution to this problem.