Strays. And dog-lovers.

Just an explanation for non-lovers of dogs, or those who are scared of them, or those that do not understand dogs: Dog lovers aren’t those that love dogs, they are exactly the same people who are loved by dogs. It is, like all love, a two-way street.

Put me on a street corner, and regardless of what I am doing, eating, or holding, if there’s a stray dog, they’ll gravitate towards me. They’ll want to be petted and spoken to, and if I have some food, maybe some of that (mostly, not even that). It is very very very very rare that a dog will snarl at me (it has happened ONCE, and I think I was carrying a golf club in my hand if I remember correctly), and it is impossible that any dog will attack me unprovoked, even if some try and chase me on my motorcycle or when I am in a car. Also, when dogs are wary of you, they will shy away, skunk, make themselves smaller, try to hide, but rarely, if at all, attack. In fact, a domestic pet dog is quite likely to snarl, bark at, or even attack a stranger without any action on the stranger’s part. But never a stray.

More so, I am willing to bet my life that the dogs on the street where I live will not only NEVER attack me but that I will NEVER try and ‘ward them off’ by running. It is the most improbable scenario where the very dogs I see every day as a dog lover, the dogs that I pet and feed, the dogs that welcome me right on my street, will one day suddenly decide to attack me, and that I, a dog lover, would try and run away from them. The whole thing stinks to high hell.

If, however, I were to slip and/or fall because I tripped or whatever, or collapse because I had a medical emergency or something similar, it is HIGHLY LIKELY that strays will gather around and bark to attract attention. Much of this barking will also be AT ME, given that they would be trying to revive/awaken me. To a lay, ignorant observer, it would appear somewhat that they are barking at me because they are trying to attack me. Any dog lover will tell you that it is a pile of dogshit.

P.S.: I am not speaking of hungry or rabid strays in packs that are responsible for recorded incidents of attacking human babies or other cynophobic humans or non-lovers of dogs. I am speaking of stray dogs attacking a dog lover. Especially a dog-lover. And even more specifically, a dog-lover who is a local from the same area as the stray dogs, a fellow resident!! I call bullshit on the whole clickbaitish reporting of the incident of the Wagh-Bakri scion, a known dog-lover returning to his own home in his locality, being attacked by strays from his locality and then dying of fright or slipping while attempting to escape or whatever other crap is being fed to you by ignorant (at best) and mischievous (at worst) media persons.

Image from January 2014 when ‘Ganga’, the stray outside our building, had pups.

Later clarification: Suffice it to say, anecdotes do not make science. So, the purpose of this post is not to rebut the wild speculation by the irresponsible media scientifically but to offer an alternate view, equally unresearched, if you may, as the media has. The point I am trying to make is simple: the scenario of a known and celebrated dog-lover who is right outside his residence being chased by stray dogs and him panicking and running is so far-fetched that I am willing to give no odds for it. Also, given that he had no dog bites or even saliva on him proves my hypothesis that the dogs were barking to attract attention and to try and wake him up (as he fell for reasons completely divorced from anything to do with dogs) rather than as an aggressive attack as made out by the media.

I think we can all agree that it is possible to believe both contentions: that we have a stray dog problem that needs creative solutions, and that stray dogs did not cause the death of Parag Desai. One is not contradicting the other. Only a very immature mind is incapable of seeing this.