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Chandigarh NGO solving city’s stray dog problem one sector at a time
A year after Peedu’s People turned Sector 5 and Chandigarh Golf Club into puppy-free zones, they have successfully completed the project in Sectors 2,3 and 4 as well
A year after the non-profit organisation Peedu’s People worked with residents and authorities to make Sector 5 and Chandigarh Golf Club a puppy-free zone, they have now successfully completed the project in Sectors 2,3 and 4 as well, in a bid to contain the population of stray dogs in these tony parts in the city’s north.
District animal welfare officer Inder Sandhu, who runs the NGO and is heading the project, says: “A sector is made puppy-free by first surveying the stray dog population and sterilising all adult canines. There is constant monitoring thereon to ensure that any other dog that enters the sector is also sterilised to reduce the population of stray dogs.”
The project carried out in Sectors 2, 3 and 4 took around six months to complete. According to Sandhu, 14 dogs and six puppies have been identified in Sector 2, five dogs and two pups in Sector 3, and six dogs and five pups in Sector 4. While the adult dogs are sterilised by private veterinarians and then cared for by the NGO and volunteers, the pups will be sterilised when they get older, he says.
In Sector 2, Ranjit Bajaj, chief operating officer of Mohali’s Minerva Academy, has worked closely with Sandhu’s team. A resident of the sector, Bajaj says: “I was taking care of stray dogs in the sector earlier too. We give special collars and ear markings to the spayed dogs and keep a check on any new dogs coming to the area.” While in Sector 5, all residents had borne the cost of the project, in Sector 2, Bajaj claims he footed the entire bill as taking contributions would have taken longer.
Area councillor Maheshinder Singh Sidhu, who has been taking a keen interest in this project since the beginning, says: “The MC tries to pitch in wherever it can, lending our dog catchers to the team and working with them to catch some of the hard-to-catch dogs.” Bani Sarkaria, a resident of Sector 4, says: “A few of us worked with the team, and had to convince some domestic helps living here, who had apprehensions, that the process is safe. There are still a few puppies left, but they are too young to be sterilised.”
According to Inder Sandhu, Sector 3 didn’t take much time to cover. “We had first started this project at Chandigarh Golf Club in 2020 and worked in Sector 5 in 2021. Now, the whole northernmost belt of the city has been made puppy-free,” he says, adding they will take up the project in some of the other sectors of the city as well. The first on the list is Sector 10, where the project has already kicked off, adds Maheshinder Singh Sidhu.
