By Tanvi Rumale
The Cubbon Park Canines (CPC), a volunteer group of pet lovers held a drive to license, vaccinate and tag pet dogs in Cubbon Park on Sunday.
The drive, held for the third time in the city, was conducted in collaboration with the Bruhat Bengalauru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP).
It was attended by hundreds of dog owners and their pets. Members of the CPC were joined by 18 BBMP officials in verifying the documents of the applicants.
The three-hour-long exercise ended only when the BBMP ran out of forms and booklets. In the end, the CPC and the BBMP were able to issue 472 licenses, a rise from the 236 issued when the drive was held for the first time in August 2017.
The officials also answered queries posed by dog owners and held health check-ups for the canines. Dogs were also tagged with the names and numbers of their owners to prevent them from getting lost because, in many cases, lost dogs are often not reunited with owners.
The drive was held after constant lobbying by the CPC against the BBMP to license and vaccinate pets in Bengaluru. “We have been pushing the BBMP to promote what is called the Animal Welfare Board notification, and this has not been done. One of the notifications, that is almost mandatory everywhere, except in Bangalore, is licensing. So last year, we went to the BBMP told them that if they don’t want to work for this, we will. Vaccinating and licensing pet dogs is important. Almost 40% of dog bites are from pet dogs, and we don’t want them to harm family and friends,” said Priya Chetty-Rajgopal, the founder of the Cubbon Park Canines.
The CPC also highlighted issues created by apartment owners for people with pets, in some cases asking residents to give away their pets or face eviction. There have also been occasions when apartment owners have demanded licenses. "This is illegal. So we’ve started a petition against apartment associations and the Police, that if we find anyone doing this, we will ask the Registrar’s office to suspend the apartment association,” she added.
The next drive is slated to take place in July, in Whitefield, as CPC wants to improve awareness about licensing pets. CPC is also starting a petition to have more dog parks in the city.