What is the population of stray cats and dogs in India?

NEWS AND COMMENT: What is the population of stray cats and dogs in India?  Despite the report I mention, we don't know. If we are being honest. In the India language there are 6.2 core stray dogs and 91 lakh stray cats according to a fresh report recently published by the State of Pet Homelessness Index. How accurate are these numbers? How did they count them? Is it possible to count them? No. They are estimates. It took Washington DC a long time and a lot of effort to count their cats in a landmark survey.

Stray cat India. Photo: Pixabay.

A 'core' denotes ten million (10,000,000) and is equal to 100 lakh in the Indian numbering system. A 'lakh' is equal to one hundred thousand (100,000).

Therefore 6.2 core is 62 million. 91 lakh is 9.1 million. I can't believe the cat numbers. Far too low. Perhaps it depends on how you define 'stray'. In India there are community cats. Are these stray cats?

There appears to be an index of stray animal populations called the 'All Pets Wanted' index. India scores 2.4 out of 10.

I think India is known for its stray cats and dogs. Isn't it? There is only one unhappy reason: carelessness and apathy about companion animal welfare. Yes, there is also a lot of the same in developed countries. It is a worldwide phenomenon. But in India and Pakistan for example the problem is more severe.

RELATED: 6 reasons for the 90% drop in pound killings of US dogs and cats since the 1970s

The same kind of carelessness which causes so much environmental pollution in India. A great nation let down by these weakness. This is supported by the finding - as reported in One India - that 61 percent of dog owners don't visit the vet (ever!). Is that true? I find that hard to believe too.

The reasons might sound justified: distance and poor reputations or facilities, but ultimately it is down to cat and dog caregivers to find a way. And if these reasons are true there is a failure at government level.

7 in 10 citizens of India see stray cats and dogs weekly.

Clearly a huge percentage of domestic or semi-domestic cats and dogs are not sterilised. They breed and generate a greater stray animal problem. It seems to be out of control. Is anyone doing anything about it?

Let's compare the 85% homeless companion animals in India with the United States (26%), Germany (7%), Greece (51%), China (29%), Mexico (20%), UK (5%), South Africa (27%) and Russia (6%). India is at the bottom by a long way. I can't vouch for these figures. You make up your own mind as to whether they are accurate. I am always dubious about counting stray cats. How do you do it? Where are they? 

In the table below please use the slider below the spreadsheet to read the data on the RHS.

RELATED: 85 percent of companion animals in India are homeless

Anxious cats are pushing up the price of pet insurance in the UK

The Times newspaper has a headline which interests me: "Why anxious cats and dogs are pushing up the price of pet insurance". They refer to a guy, Sean Feast, who had to work from home during the pandemic lockdown. Until then he was unsure why he is cat, Marble, a four-year-old tabby, was difficult. She was hard to control and "bitey". 

Marble and Sean Feast. Photo: The Times. Great newspaper. Highly recommended!

In other words, Marble tended to bite people even though they were kind to her. She was always aggressive towards people. He discovered why while he was at home durning the extensive lockdown. A neighbouring Bengal cat frequently came through the cat flap for a visit. This dramatically disturbed Marble's life. It was a massive intrusion onto her territory which made her anxious. It would seem that the Bengal cat was quite dominant and that Marble is quite timid by comparison. She had no outlet for her anxiety. It would come out in aggressivity towards people who wanted to be kind to her.

This is called redirected aggression in the cat world. Sometimes people think that their cat is simply aggressive and nasty. There is always a good reason why a cat demonstrates apparent unprovoked aggression. And redirected aggression is not uncommon.

RELATED: Domestic cat attacks their own tail because of redirected aggression.

But the purpose of this short article is in the title. I'm concerned that there are more anxious cats than people are aware of. I believe that cat caregivers should be alert to anxiety in their cat. I believe that it is not that far from the surface. Domestic cats are inherently very alert to what is going on around them and it does not take a lot to energise them. I believe that this predisposes them to anxiety. It is inherent as part of their survival strategy. And as they live in the human world, a land of giants, a slightly timid cat may suffer an almost continual level of slight anxiety.

Certainly, Covid, and the long lockdowns followed by the caregiver going back to the office has disturbed the routines and rhythms upon which the domestic cat relies so heavily. This, too, is likely to heighten anxiety levels. There is, if we are honest, a great problem with cat owners who have to be away from home all day, sometimes for long hours. 

RELATED: Picture of a young cat with a large elderly dog whose separation anxiety was cured by this confident cat.

Under these circumstances cats will often become anxious. It'll be a form of separation anxiety. This can be manifest in health issues such as cystitis and behavioural issues brought about by isolation and boredom if they are confined to the home. And of course cat owners who are away all the time are not able to observe their cat to notice the kind of pressures that they might be under from neighbouring cats if they are allowed outside.

I believe that it is beholden upon cat owners to prioritise the confidence levels in their cat. They should do all they can to boost their domestic cat companion's confidence to make them feel as calm and relaxed as possible. This means plenty of routines in their life which makes them feel more secure. It also means being around as much as possible and creating a calm environment in which they are allowed to express natural behaviour which at heart is wild cat behaviour. 

RELATED: Study says that cats are prone to separation anxiety in homes with two female residents.

This is the raw cat as Jackson Galaxy calls it. The raw cat within - the wildcat within. If you meet the demands of the wildcat they feel whole. If you add to that a friendly and predictable environment they feel whole and content.

I wasn't able to read The Times article but I suspect that the increased insurance premiums arise out of the fact that with feline anxiety you get health problems. The classic one is cystitis commonly called idiopathic cystitis. This causes inappropriate elimination. But there will be other perhaps more insidious health issues.

Microchip your cat or face £500 fine cat owners are warned (UK)

Compulsory dog micro-chipping has been in place since 2016 in the UK. It's now the turn of cats. In England, from 2023, all cat owners will be required to have their feline companions microchip or face a fine of up to £500. It's finally coming about. There's been a discussion for a long time about compulsory micro-chipping in the UK. However, it is not as simple as simply enacting a law because with respect to dog micro-chipping the law is marginally workable as there are too many microchip databases.

You don't have to rely on a veterinary clinic to scan for a chip. You can do it. If you find a lost cat you can reunite that cat with their owner. You can purchase a scanner on Amazon for about £50. The scanner will tell you the chip number. You can then find out online which chip company has that number and contact the chip company.

There has been a delay in introducing mandated cat micro-chipping due to a review taking place into the regulations on micro-chipping of dogs. Veterinarians have raised concerns that the system which requires registering the microchip on about 15 separate databases can cause problems when trying to reunite dogs with their owners.

Microchip. Pic in public domain.

Defra plans to improve the database system before introducing mandated micro-chipping to cats.

There are over 10.8 million cat companions in the UK. I'm told by The Times newspaper that as many as 2.8 million are un-chipped. And 80% of stray cats brought to Cats Protection are not microchip.

Under the new law, can owners will have to ensure that their pet is microchipped before they reach the age of 20 weeks. Further, the contact details will need to be kept up-to-date on the database. Failure to comply with the law could result in a £500 fine if they do not rectify the problem within 21 days.

Lord Goldsmith, an animal lover and a friend of Carrie Johnson, who I suspect is pushing for these changes to animal welfare laws, said:

"Cats are much-loved parts of our families and making sure they're microchipped is the best way of making sure that you are reunited with them if they are ever lost or stolen."

The new rules will help protect millions of cats across the country. They are part of the government's Action Plan for Animal Welfare according to Lord Goldsmith.

Jacqui Cuff, the head of advocacy at Cats Protection said:

"Every day, we see how important micro-chipping is for cats and for people who love them - whether it's reuniting a loss cat with their owner, identifying an injured cat, or helping to ensure an owner can be informed in the said event that their cat has been hit and killed by a car."

The BVA (British Veterinary Association) are very much behind the new law but they are adamant that the database issue is dealt with in order to make the law effective.

P.S. In 2016, the Daily Record reported that at that time there were up to 6 firms operating separate databases in the UK which, it is claimed, made it almost impossible to operate. Some veterinarians said that the compulsory micro-chipping of dogs was unworkable as a result. There are other databases in Europe, the US and Canada. These databases are meant to be part of a network so they are cross-referenced but apparently this is not always the case. On occasions it seems that you can key in the microchip number for a dog that you know is micro-chipped and registered but the database comes up with a "no registration found" warning. This is the problem referred to by Lord Goldsmith.

Comment: one problem I foresee is enforcing the law. How does an official know whether a cat is micro-chipped or not? I suspect that the only time it will become apparent is when a lost cat is found and scanned by a veterinarian. If that cat is not microchipped and the owner can be found then they will be in line for a fine, potentially.

2 Indian leopard stories highlighting human-leopard conflict

Here are two common leopard stories from India which highlight the catastrophic human-leopard conflict in that vast country. They also remind us of the constant pressure on the leopard for habitat as it is being eroded year-on-year through human population growth and commercial activity. The leopard is being pushed off India. 

Leopard enters classroom in India. Screenshot.

There are countless conflicts between people and the leopard in India every year. The leopard invariably loses although, rarely a person is killed. The leopard becomes habituated to human settlements which endangers them and of course the people who lived in those settlements. Or, more likely, the people feel endangered. My interpretation of the news stories is that the leopard is almost invariably killed or if lucky tranquillised and removed. But the leopard often resorts to night-time activities to avoid humans.

Note: Below are an embedded video and tweet. Sometimes they are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. If that has happened, I apologise but I have no control over it.

Classroom

The first story concerns a leopard who wandered into a school and attacked a student. It seems that the student was the right size as a prey animal for a leopard. They do tend to attack kids (see the second story below). The student suffered minor injuries. He ran out of the classroom when he saw the leopard hiding there. The leopard was judged to be five years old. It was tranquilized and captured after an 11-hour effort. The officials say that the leopard strayed from a patch of forest nearby. This highlights the proximity of the leopard habitat to the human habitat. The video above shows the leopard wandering around the classroom.

Woman grabs her son from a leopard

A woman living in Madhya Pradesh tracked a leopard which had grabbed her eight year old son in its jaws and carried him off. She first put her other children in a safe place and then rushed into the forest to chase the leopard. The reports are rather vague but she tracked down the leopard after about 1 km and managed to grab her son from the leopard and bring him home. Villagers by that time had also intervened and chased away the leopard with sticks. The incident took place last Sunday in Badi Jharia village, in the buffer zone of the Sanjay Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh's Sidhi district, located over 500 from the state capital Bhopal.

Kiran the mother who fought a leopard. Screenshot.

Here is the tweet:

काल के हाथों से बच्चे को निकाल कर नया जीवन देने वाली मां को प्रणाम। प्रदेश के सीधी जिले में तेंदुए का एक किमी दूर पीछा कर मां अपने कलेजे के टुकड़े के लिए उससे भिड़ गईं। मौत से टकराने का ये साहस ममता का ही अद्भुत स्वरूप है। मां श्रीमती किरण बैगा का प्रदेशवासियों की तरफ से अभिनंदन।

Translation per Google (not great :-? )

Salutations to the mother who took out the child from the hands of time and gave her a new lease of life. The mother chased the leopard a km away in Sidhi district of the state and confronted her for a piece of her liver. This courage to hit death is a wonderful form of Mamta. Greetings to Mother Smt.

काल के हाथों से बच्चे को निकाल कर नया जीवन देने वाली मां को प्रणाम। प्रदेश के सीधी जिले में तेंदुए का एक किमी दूर पीछा कर मां अपने कलेजे के टुकड़े के लिए उससे भिड़ गईं। मौत से टकराने का ये साहस ममता का ही अद्भुत स्वरूप है। मां श्रीमती किरण बैगा का प्रदेशवासियों की तरफ से अभिनंदन। pic.twitter.com/46Uuc0srx0

— Shivraj Singh Chouhan (@ChouhanShivraj) November 30, 2021

The brave woman's name is Kiran. An Indian new website, NDTV, reports that she was sitting beside a fire with her three children to keep them warm inside her hut. The leopard appeared and instantly caught hold of her son Rahul in its jaws and dragged him away. The mother kept her cool. She tried to scare the leopard away with a stick and also raised the alarm. It seems that the leopard became scared and left the child. When she took her child into her arms the cat attacked her. She overpowered the cat. Luckily the boy received relatively minor injuries. They were taken to a primary healthcare unit for treatment. The forestry department agreed to bear the expenses of their treatment.

In domestic violence households, gifted animals are abused 94% of the time

In research carried out by Dr. Mary Wakeham, formerly of Bristol University, on the link between domestic violence and animal abuse, they found that in 94% of domestic violence households were an animal was given as a gift the animals were then abused and in some cases killed by the perpetrator of the domestic violence. I find the percentage astonishing but I don't find the link surprising. We know that pets are used as tools by the perpetrators of domestic violence to control and coerce their victims.

In domestic violence households gifted animals are abused 94% of the time. Image: MikeB

This research is another added piece of information which confirms sadly what we already know and understand: the link between animal abuse and domestic violence. Companion animals are ideally placed for the perpetrators of domestic violence to psychologically attack their victims. They are innocent and vulnerable and emotionally connected to the victims of domestic violence.

The research was carried out by Dogs Trust and Cats Protection (believed). It also found that 97% of people working in the domestic abuse sector said that companion animals were often used as a way to control victims of domestic violence.

The researchers also concluded that in households where there is domestic violence (domestic abuse) 88% of the time animals were also abused by the perpetrator. And in more than 10% of these homes, animals were killed by perpetrators to emotionally harm their victims and to punish and frighten them. I suspect that these pet killings are often unreported and undealt with by the police because of further coercion.

The information is published ahead of a campaign to tackle domestic violence called 16 Days of Action against Domestic Violence. It started on November 25. It is therefore still running at the time of this post.

Freedom Project Manager at Dogs Trust, Amy Hyde, said that their organisation has heard of the perpetrators of domestic abuse not allowing victims to walk their dogs alone. They stop them from accessing veterinary care for the dogs or being able to spend money on dog food. These are not direct acts violence against the animals concerned but another way of using pets to control and coerce their victims who are dog lovers. If you love a dog and have a strong bond with a dog, the nasty people who perpetrate domestic violence user that information to their advantage. Cats are also involved of course.

It's a shocking indictment of the dysfunctionality of humankind in some settings and in some places by some people.

The study

The research study is titled Animal Abuse As a Strategy of Coercive Control. It was conducted by Dr. Mary Wakeham a former PhD Student at the University of Bristol. I could not find the study online. Perhaps it is yet to be published. It concerned a national survey of 107 respondents who were all victim-survivors of domestic abuse in the UK. They all lived with companion animals. In-depth interviews were conducted with 24 of them together with 10 professionals. Animal abuse occurred in 94 of the 107 i.e. 88% of the households. All 24 interviewed participants talked about how the perpetrator abused their companion animal.

The Dogs Trust website say that in 13 of the 107 homes the animals were killed. This is 12% of the cases.