Thursday, June 29, 2006

Every dog has its day... and its road.

My little fellow has fallen in love with dogs. He wants to see them all over the place all the time. As soon as you lift him, he says 'Bow bow' indicating that "take me out so that I can have the pleasure of seeing a dog." And there are plenty on our street. Some stray and some pet dogs. Some are ferocious. Some are atrocious. A lot of cars, school vans and buses, Call-centre vehicles (usually a Sumo) comes to my street and all the stray canines just chase these out. But when the same happens to a 2 wheeler, it is very dangerous. It also happens to those walking. These dogs are posing problems for residents and 2-wheeler riders in parts of Malleswaram and Rajajinagar. It may be a problem faced by any Bangalorean, for that matter. These dogs bark at every vehicle or residents passing making life in the night an absolute nuisance. Especially, when driving in the dead of the night, one of things that most of us fear is being chased by a stray dog. The risk of meeting with an accident for a 2-wheeler rider is too high as you tend to accelerate to get the stray dog off your back. There have been number of such accidents in the past. Jurisdictionally stray dogs are the responsibility of local corporations or CMCs. Till a few years back, stray dogs being put to death in large numbers were not unheard of in the State. But given the awareness about animal rights and a 1994 SC ruling, killing stray dogs is not a solution to the problem. And when the corporation van does come to pick them up, they go underground! These dogs are fed by the residents on the pretext of being compassionate to animals. But when it comes to taking ownership for their road side pets, well the answer is best left unsaid. Like wise, inconsiderate neighbours house a few dogs which bark through out the night. It's a wonder how the owner sleeps. The laws of India don't protect the common man, from such inconsiderate neighbours. Thus we are left with the option of tucking our heads under our pillows to catch some peace... "Bangalore a Pensioner's Paradise" is a dream of the past, with such nice unstoppable music playing through the night. It seems the great dramatist TP Kailasam went to a friend's house who had a dog. Kailasam stood outside the gate as the dog kept barking. His friend told Kailasam, "Come in Kailasam, don't you know that barking dogs never bite" for which TPK said,"You and I know that. Does the dog know about it?" Got to go on a stroll now, my little fellow is saying 'Bow bow'.

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Husharappa magu na nayigalinda doora ittiri...

Its amazing how intelligent these stray dogs are, especially when the corporation van comes around. They seem to just disappear into the underground (mori)

7/01/2006 09:36:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Once after watching a late night show @PVR, I had to drive through domlur layout to drop my friend at RustamBagh. It was almost 2 am. As soon we entered Domlur layout from inner ring road, the chase started and continued almost till airport road. The fellas were in a real bad mood and it seemd well co-ordinated with the other fellas picking up the baton (as in a relay race) every 100 metres or so. This poor friend of my mine happends to be an NRI who has returned home after a really long time and he pushed his legs up as far up as possible, making it really difficult for me to drive the bike.

The really weird thing I have noticed during these long dog chases is how territorial these mutts are - they will stop abruptly when their territory ends. This friend of mine thinks the dogs in BLR get real nasty at night since the cold weather makes them very hungry.

7/02/2006 10:10:00 AM  
Blogger RK said...

Vijay: Really, stray dogs are very intelligent. A relative of mine had trained a stray dog to fetch newspaper from a nearby shop!

BNB:That must have been scary to ur friend!

7/03/2006 11:27:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Humans are the root cause for the dog menace. Otherwise they are wonderful creatures to have happend to the mankind. Just look at the number of garbage dumps we have created all over Bangalore, and the dogs just love these spots. If we keep the surroundigs clean, their nuisance would gradually diminish.

7/12/2006 04:56:00 PM  
Blogger RK said...

Arun: You have a point there.

Earlier, there used to be garbage bins at every street corner, ever since they have removed it, a van comes once every morning. What I have seen is that some people cannot wait till the next morning to dispose off the garbage and they throw it at some place on the road. And this attracts the stray dogs, who mess up the place by spreading the garbage all over the place.

This is just one aspect of it.

7/12/2006 07:13:00 PM  

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