The Hindu             26.06.2013

“Butterfly nets, the safest way to catch community dogs”

For several years now, the Municipality and other
agencies employed to capture community dogs for ABC (Animal Birth
Control) have been using a rope to catch the dogs.

Recently,
following the visit of Government of India officials, the Municipality
experimented with various other methods, including the use of blow
pipes.

Animal rights groups across the town, however,
object to these methods for catching the community dogs and they are
asking that the Municipality and the SPCA, who are in charge of ABC
programme for the dogs, change their approach and adopt better methods
for capturing the dogs.

According to R. Kanimozhi
from the SCAN foundation, in the past two months, there have been a
number of reports in the media about cruelty to animals in the name of
ABC.

On April 2, around 25 dogs in Lawspet were
killed using lethal weapons and logs because they were considered a
menace to society.

Recently, there was a report in
The Hindu
about the veterinary doctor of the Municipality K. Coumarane using a blow pipe to capture dogs.

“It is a mockery to see a professional veterinarian using a method that is meant for wild animals on community dogs,” she said.

The
blow pipe, with the injection that is used for wild animals, could
puncture vital organs of the dog and even cause instant death, she
added. Many newspapers have started carrying stories of “dog menace” but
most of them are untrue and unacceptable.

Following
these articles, the municipal authorities seem to have increased their
efforts to capture dogs using dangerous methods and employing labourers
who do not care about the safety of the animals and who do not know
anything about animal handling, Ms. Kanimozhi said.

Catching dogs with a rope could strangle the animals to death or even break their necks, paralysing them permanently.

Secondly, the move is a danger to the dog catcher, since the dog will be more prone to violence when caught in this way.

Offering
some suggestions for the proper capturing of dogs, R.B. Kannan from the
People’s Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) said, places like Bangalore have
now switched from using ropes to using what is called a “butterfly
net”. Using the net, dog catchers will be able to easily catch the
community dogs.

The butterfly net is simply a net
that is attached to the end of a stick. The dog catcher will have to
simply put the net on top of the dog and scoop it up. Dogs captured in
this way will tend to be more docile.

There are
several volunteer organisations that are willing to also contribute to
the ABC programme to ensure that the dogs are treated in a more humane
way. So far, only the SPCA has been given permission to conduct ABC
operations and their methods have been violent, Raghu, Secretary of PAWS
said.

A few animal welfare organisations, including
Animal India Trust, have submitted proposals to the government, but they
have been rejected, he said.

By using the butterfly
net and other standardised procedures to perform ABC will ensure that
the supposed “dog menace” is reduced and at the same time the animals
are not handled cruelly, he added.