Family planning for dogs in IIMA

The infamous dog menace at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA), the country’s top B-school, faces a different curve this year. The bitches of the B-school will not breed, at least after this mating season.

In a joint initiative by the city-based group Dogstop, Humane Society International and Animal Health Foundation, 39 dogs in the IIMA campus were vaccinated and sterilized last week in an attempt to control the exploding population of the canines as well as to eliminate the threat posed to morning joggers by bitches with offspring.

Talking about the situation in the campus which called for such an initiative, Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), IIMA, NV Pillai said: “We have this dog menace problem and had been receiving many complaints. So we had to deal with the issue but in a humane way. When we got in touch with the experts, we decided to take up the initiative with them.”

Founder & director of Dogstop, Lisa Warden, said. “We learnt about the problems caused by dogs in the IIMA campus from the institute’s faculties. So we decided to take up the job and handle it to set an example for the city.”

After the free-of-cost process of taking the census of dogs in the campus began in early March, the team began catching the dogs and vaccinating and sterilising them by the second week of the month.

Warden said, “It is not just a simple sterilisation process but a holistic programme. It begins with taking the census and studying the characters of the dogs. Red collars are put on ‘risky’ dogs while others have blue collars. We don’t put any collars on dogs which are yet to grow up. “We also spread awareness on how dogs play an important part in the community.”

Talking about the advantages of the exercise, she said, “Since dogs are territorial and won’t let any other dogs enter their area,  the place will have only vaccinated dogs and will ward off unvaccinated dogs, who also play an important role against rats.”

Eighty-four per cent of the 51 dogs on the IIMA campus have been sterilized and vaccinated. Warden said, “The other 20% are very smart and difficult to catch.” After giving a few days’ break to ease the scare among the canines, the rest of the dogs will also be sterilized and vaccinated.”