The Indian government’s Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying has brought out an order which bans the import, breeding and sale of certain dog breeds because of a common misconception amongst the general public and the expert committee which called these breeds ‘dangerous’.

The banned breeds include Pitbull Terrier, Tosa Inu, American Staffordshire Terrier, Fila Brasileiro, Dogo Argentino, American Bulldog, Boerboel, Kangal, Central Asian Sheepdog, Caucasian Shepherd Dog, South Russian Shepherd Dog, Tornjak, Sarplaninac, Japanese Tosa and Akita, Mastiff (Boerboel), Rottweiler, Terriers, Rhodesian Ridgeback, Wolf Dogs, Canario, Akbash, Moscow Guard Dog, Cane Corso and every type of dog commonly known as Ban Dog or Bandog.

In a letter to all the states on March 12th, department joint secretary Dr O.P. Chaudhry has stated that cases of deaths of people due to bites by ferocious breeds of dogs kept as pets were reported to it. In addition, certain citizen and civil groups as well as anti-dog groups had petitioned the government for a ban on these so-called ferocious breeds. Also, responding to a writ petition, the Delhi High Court had asked the Centre to decide on the issue after consulting all stakeholders.

Following the court order, the department constituted an expert committee which is headed by a commissioner, animal husbandry and other stakeholders. As of now, the department has directed the state governments to ask local bodies to ensure implementation of the ban, which effectively bans almost 90% of all the breeds which are domesticated by thousands of families within India. As per the report, dogs of these breeds already kept as pets would need to be sterilised.

However, the issue of calling a dog breed as ‘dangerous’ must be looked into very carefully. Most of the time, the dogs which are actually dangerous are trained to be so by its owners. There are also cases where inappropriate training of certain breeds can cause the dog to be ‘dangerous’. Since, the whole issue has arisen to due a rise in the number of dog bite cases, an aspect which the government need to look into is how the owners are training the dogs and actively form laws to prevent any sort of animal cruelty or inappropriate training by the owners.

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