Dog-lovers in Bangalore slam barbaric treatment to ‘rabid’ dog

“If the dog was rabid, then this is a serious situation. I feel sad, but the other dog(s) that were bitten need to be isolated and put to sleep,” says Priya Chetty Rajagopal, a dog-lover, who felt that beating a dog to death and dragging its body behind a motorcycle was no way to handle the situation, even if the dog were indeed rabid.

Achala Pani, of Let’s Live Together, an NGO that rehabilitates stray pups, said the incident “sent out a wrong signal that such treatment was acceptable”.

Moreover, she was doubtful if the dog was rabid, “as it would have collapsed within an hour, because a rabid dog only gets furious in the terminal stages of the disease, biting everyone in sight.

"Then the dog will typically begin to suffer weakness in its hindquarters and won’t be able to run around for eight hours [as was speculated in a media report]”.

Both Rajagopal and Pani felt that the need of the hour was to first understand how to prevent rabies and then to come out against the treatment meted out to this dog.

Concerned about the safety of not just humans, but other animals, Rajagopal said, “Authorities need to get into action and ensure a stringent coverage of their respective areas to ensure there is no spread of the disease.”

Rajagopal said the media should be wary about covering such gruesome killings as it merely served to lend them an air of justification.

“Now the threat to strays has increased, because those who feel that the only solution is to kill these animals will do so and claim the dogs were rabid,” she said.

Pani suggested that strays should be looked on as community dogs and in this way the dogs can help serve the areas they belong to.

“The government programme often fails because dogs are picked up from one area and left in another. This is problematic as dogs are territorial and feel lost,” she said.