MOSCOW, August 9 (RIA Novosti) - Indian stray dogs may soon receive special training to work for municipal security services. As New Delhi authorities announce, the police is recruiting dog specialists to make dogs work as city guards, thus improving safety in the region.
"If these dogs are going to roam the NDMC [New Delhi Municipal Corp] area, they might as well work," the civic body's chairman Jalaj Shrivastava told The Hindu newspaper on Saturday.
According to the statistics, there were about 260,000 homeless canines in India’s capital in 2009.
"Our plan is to adopt these strays and train them as guard dogs to work with the public security force,” Shrivastava said, adding that 40 trainers have already been employed and they plan to hire another 700.
"This initiative is meant to address two issues: take the strays off the streets, thereby tackling the dog menace, and make the city safer for residents," he added.
The municipal program includes vaccination and feeding of the dogs. After the 2001 legislation act that banned the murder of street dogs, their population has increased greatly, leading to approximately 20,000 cases of rabies each year, most of them fatal, according to the AFP news agency.
