BY RYAN LOBO

On January 4, 2007, columnist Tavleen Singh was ordered to pay a fine of Rs 500 when her dog defecated on Marine drive in Bombay. She refused, arguing that when the city was overrun with stray dogs pooping at will in public spaces, it was unfair to fine her.

^{An animal rights activist feeds dogs on Morjim beach in Goa as a municipal worker rakes up dog faeces. Photo: Ryan Lobo}

In India, it’s the responsibility of municipalities to keep streets free of stray animals, to ensure a healthy environment. Every Municipal Act in India has a section mentioning removal and destruction of stray dogs as part of their statutory duties.

India today is reeling from the effects of unowned ‘stray’ dogs which include millions of documented attacks, the second largest cause of traffic accidents, noise pollution & also rabies which India has the dubious distinction of being a world leader in. But the crap doesn’t end with these violative figures. Unowned dogs harbour and transmit various diseases including via their faeces found as thickly on many Indian pavements and public spaces as Wordsworth’s daffodils beside the lake and beneath the trees.

As of a 2014 survey, India has about 59 million stray free ranging dogs or about 80 million today. Assuming each dog defecates 350-400 grams of number two daily, stray dogs excrete about 30,000 tons of crap every day or about eleven million tons of toxic, pathogenic waste is deposited in public spaces, every year. Swacch Bharat that.

Dogs are a major reservoir for zoonotic infections with about 40 diseases transmitted via dogs (and cats), that can contribute significantly to the burden of infectious disease in India – world leader again in various diseases.

In 2014, the WHO estimated that India has the highest burden of helminth (parasitic worm) infections in the world, with 223 million children aged 1–14 years at risk. India accounts for 65% of helminth infections in South East Asia, and 27% of cases globally, transmittable via human, pig and dog faeces.

Dried dog faeces can stay toxic for years and even allow for helminth eggs to mature and become more deadly. Dog waste is not easily compostable and compost using dog faeces cannot be used on plants grown for human consumption. Various studies across India detail the presence of these parasites in public spaces. In this Assam study, the role of dogs in transmission of roundworm infections was studied. Nearly all (99%) dogs harboured zoonotic gastrointestinal parasites demonstrating the role of stray dogs as significant disseminators of Ascaris lumbricoides. This study in Mumbai proved a high prevalence of leptospirosis in stray dogs and this study in Chennai showed prevalence of zoonotic helminths and protozoan parasites in unowned dogs.

Dog poop also contributes to contamination of rivers, beaches and waterways. Every monsoon, rain washes massive tonnages of animal faeces into waterways, that contribute to an explosion of ‘waterborne’ diseases including cholera, leptospirosis, dysentry and typhoid, all transmittable via dog faeces categorised as highly toxic by the EPA in the USA, capable of closing vast areas of water for human use.

The crapshow doesn’t end there.

A single gram of dog faeces contains an estimated 23 million coliform bacteria (twice that of human faeces) including E. Coli that cause cramps, diarrhoea, intestinal and kidney illness or even death. Dogs harbour various gastro intestinal parasites and pathogens transmittable via faeces that also harbour Noroviruses, one of the leading causes of diarrhoeal diseases worldwide, Salmonella that causes infectious diseases like gastroenteritis, enteric fever, bacteraemia and osteomyelitis, Brucellosis and Leptospirosis, a serious Indian emerging public health issue. Dogs are also major reservoirs for campylobacter, one of the greatest causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. There is a growing body of evidence suggesting that animal faeces may pose a significant risk to child nutrition and health outcomes. Approximately one-third of deaths among children under five years are due to diarrhoea in the Global Burden of Disease 2015 report, attributed to pathogens also transmitted via animal faeces. Diarrhoea alone kills an estimated 300,000  children in India each year.

The Swach Bharat program has reduced human open defecation significantly across India. A variety of research has shown that while human open defecation has been stopped in many areas there is no consistent evidence to show a decrease in faecal transmitted pathogens. One conclusion is that these interventions failed to interrupt a critical pathway in pathogen transmission i.e. exposure to animal faeces.

If the Indian reader is wondering why he/she hasn’t keeled over yet due to stray dog poop, it’s because these pathogens affect mostly the poor and vulnerable or more the people stepping into and not reading articles about dog poop online. But the next time you develop a sneeze, the cause might be airborne dried dog faeces particles, not yet studied in India, but a known source of airborne pathogens that trigger allergic asthma and seasonal allergies.

In Milk Men Colony Vikas Samiti v. State Of Rajasthan, the Supreme Court held that the “right to life” means clean surroundings including as per the judgement, freedom from stray animals. Interestingly the supreme court has already ordered the removal of stray animals from public places in 2007, setting a precedent. Even more interesting is that this is severely violated by the controversial ABC policy, a subordinate piece of animal rights inspired legislation, for dog population control, the latest version released via the Ministry of Animal Husbandry in 2023, that prohibits the removal or euthanasia of stray dogs.

The ABC rules also seriously compromise IPC provisions, Municipal Acts, the PCA Act and public nuisance laws, all of which mandate the removal of stray animals. In contravention, the ABC rules mandate both sterilisation, vaccination and maintenance of unowned dogs in public spaces, perhaps forgetting that sterilised, vaccinated dogs can still bite, transmit numerous diseases and defecate in public, everyday.

Section 20 of the ABC Rules state that “it shall be the responsibility of the Resident Welfare Association or Apartment Owner Association or Local Body’s representative of that area to make necessary arrangement for feeding of community animals”

Thus, today in India, the public maintenance of a known disease vector species is mandated via the ABC policy that pushes stray dog feeding in both private and public spaces, providing raw materials for the manufacture and distribution of tens of thousands of tons of pathogenic material in public spaces every day.

^{Above diagram adapted from Wagner, E.; Lanoix, J., Excreta disposal for rural areas and small communities. Monograph Series World Health Organization.1958, 39, 182.}

Under the animal rights inspired ABC rules, stray dogs are called ‘community animals’ the label falsely implying they’re owned by the community. However the term community animal does not exist under any act and there is no provision in the Indian constitution to hand over the responsibility for stray animals to citizens.

Hanging over the whole (dog) mess is the SC ban on manual scavenging or the manual removal of any faeces, which begs the question –  Who is supposed to clean up thousands of tons of dog faeces every day?

A bye-law of Mumbai explicitly says: “Pet owner [is] responsible to clean litter by pet.” The fine for not picking up a pets faeces is Rs 500. If citizens are expected to pay fines, municipalities should accept their public health and safety responsibility and remove/euthanise stray dogs.  Or if hypocrisy is not an option, municipalities can pay the fine of Rs 500 per dog per dog crap. At about 2 craps a day per dog and given our national population of unowned dogs, fines from municipalities could total about 60 billion rupees a year.

Crap.

Or India could scrap the ABC rules that prohibit removal and euthanasia of unowned dogs, allow for just application of the Constitution and law, hand over the management of stray dogs to the Ministry of Health and not the Ministry of Animal Husbandry that has nothing to do with public health and safety, refuse to entertain animal rights activism that pushes policy that keeps India diseased and dirty and remove/euthanize stray dogs following effective global precedent.

And Tavleen Singh will then have no excuse to not pay her fine.

Ryan Lobo is a filmmaker, writer and photographer who has developed, shot and produced more than 80 documentaries on subjects ranging from the Afghan drug trade and man eating leopards to King Cobras and Liberian Warlords. He has shot film and photo projects for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and his films have aired on the National Geographic Channel, Animal Planet, OWN and PBS among other networks. A TED speaker, Ryan Lobo has co-produced the 2011 Sundance award winning film, “The Redemption of General Butt Naked” about a Liberian warlord’s quest for forgiveness. Ryan is a published author for his novel ‘Mr. Iyer Goes to War’ , with Bloomsbury UK.