"Mumbai turns out to be a pretty good place to be a dog," the New York Times reported on 27 September 2017.[1] In the Indian city, people band together to feed stray dogs and make sure they receive medical care: "The poorest people living on the streets barely have enough food themselves, but they feed strays. And the rich, well, some go completely overboard."[2] Some people refer to dogs as "community dogs" instead of stray dogs.
In 2017, photos went viral of Mumbai's dogs turning blue as a result of a clothing company's dye polluting a river where dogs played. Neighbors rallied to the dogs' assistance. A captured blue dog was given veterinarian care and released. Near a factory, residents rescued a dog from a ditch full of nitric acid. That dog became mostly blind, but neighbors continued to care for it.[3]
Refusing to kill stray dogs, the Indian government has enacted sterlization as an alternative:
The result in Mumbai, animal welfare experts say, is a virtuous cycle.
Sterilized dogs, which don’t have puppies or prowl around for mates, tend to be more relaxed, which makes people less fearful of them, which makes the dogs friendlier, which makes people even more accepting of them.
- ↑ Jeffrey Gettleman, "Stray Dogs Started Turning Blue. Then the Street Mobilized," 27 September 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/27/world/asia/mumbai-blue-dogs.html.
- ↑ Gettleman, "Stray Dogs."
- ↑ Gettleman, "Stray Dogs."