Loud crackers: More strays reported missing this year in Bengaluru

Animal welfare volunteers are spotting unfamiliar dogs and are coordinating efforts to return them to their original areas

Animal welfare volunteers across Bengaluru are still trying to trace community dogs that likely fled their localities in panic during Deepavali. Social media is flooded with posts of missing alerts, sightings and search tips, like checking empty plots or drains when it is quiet enough to call out their names.

Lucky, who lives in Ramamurthy Nagar, has not returned to his spot since the evening of October 20. Locals last saw him near a row of shops. H Soumya, outside whose home Lucky would often sit, is distraught. “Every Deepavali, I bring him into our compound to shield him from the firecrackers. But this time, I was out of town,” says the college student. She has since put up posters, shared his details online, and scours the neighbourhood twice a day.

Roughly 15 km away in Kumara Park, Simran Punjabi’s family is slowly losing hope of finding their pet cat, Naughty, who has never stayed away this long. “She steps out at 5 am and is back within two hours. But last Tuesday, people began lighting firecrackers in the morning, and to make things worse, it rained that evening. She hasn’t returned since,” says Simran, who works at a tattoo and piercing studio. They have spread the word online as well as in the neighbourhood.

The CJ Memorial Trust has 60 hyperlocal canine squads across the city. Its trustee Priya Chetty-Rajagopal says nearly half the animals reported missing since Deepavali remain untraceable. “Our volunteers keep posting the same three alerts — missing community dogs, frightened new dogs, or area dogs that are injured or terrified,” she says. New dogs were spotted in Cubbon Park, Majestic railway station and under drains across the city, she adds.  In the Palace Road area where she lives, five new dogs appeared post Deepavalu, of which two have since made their way back.

Cooke Town resident Sakena Begg started the Diwali Dogs WhatsApp group after seeing the flood of distress posts. The group now has over 200 members. She says given the volume of cases pouring into the group, roughly 400 dogs are still missing. "We are able to track one or two a day,” she says.

Priya notes that the number of animals running off this year is higher than previous years. She attributes it partly to increased reporting — with more residents taking ownership of community dogs — and the Supreme Court’s recent emphasis on animal welfare. But she also blames excessive cracker use. The Supreme Court relaxed the rule for Delhi-NCR but people thought it applied to the whole country, she says. Bengaluru permitted the bursting of crackers only on October 21 and 22 between 8 and 10 pm. “Even some police patrols seemed unclear about the rule,” she adds.

Sadhana Hegde, founder of the Sahavarthin Animal Welfare Trust, which coordinates 350 animal feeders citywide, agrees. She says cracker use went on past midnight and was “louder than before”, possibly due to the popularity of high-decibel “hydrogen bombs”. “Almost every volunteer in our network has reported at least one missing community dog. The dogs that run into new areas are often chased further by local packs,” she says.

Even the animal rescue helpline run by CARE (Charlie’s Animal Rescue Centre) has seen a “huge spike” in missing animal cases this year, including four cats, says founder Sudha Narayanan. But none have been traced yet. “Even the noise levels felt higher this time. But unlike last year when we used to get 10 calls for injured strays a day, we haven’t received such calls this time,” she says. Even Praana Animal Foundation has reported higher Deepavali-related distress calls, of around 40. Of these, roughly 30% were pet dog cases, shares it cofounder Aniruddha Ravindra. “We are helping amplify the message. We don't know how many have been found,” he says.

DCP, command centre, was unavailable for comments on how many calls the 112 received during Deepavali festivities to curb the bursting of crackers outside of specified timings.

‘Reunion like a miracle’

Animal lovers who have managed to reunite with their strays are breathing a sigh of relief. Such as, couple Shreyas Deshpande and Ashwini Gangadhar who work in the IT as product and instructional designers respectively. The HSR Layout residents found two of their community dogs, thanks to collars marked with their contact numbers. One, a female named Sister, was traced 9 km away in Bellandur. Another, Jimmy, was found a kilometre away. Last Deepavali, Jimmy had wandered about 17 km to Kalyan Nagar. When a dog feeder there discovered him distressed and with a fracture on his leg, she started caring for him. But in February, he was chased away by an area dog. And then, a total of six months later, he returned to HSR Layout miraculously, says Shreyas.

A dog feeder in R T Nagar was reunited with Blacky, one of the 30 dogs she feeds, after four days. “He was spotted 5 km away in Cooke Town. Someone shared his photo in Sakena’s group. When I rushed there, he looked dazed and his paws were scraped. He did not respond to my calls until I went really close to him,” she recalls. 

Radha Thomas, admin of the Frazer Town Canine Squad, said that just when she had lost hope of some community dogs returning, they showed up on Wednesday night.

Vaccinating new dogs

Volunteers have had their hands full before and after Deepavali. They boarded timid dogs, urged residents to offer refuge on their property, fitted some dogs with collars bearing their phone numbers, and even vaccinated and neutered some. But volunteers say collars often get stolen, or torn off while the dogs play.

Samridhi Hira, who tends to over 100 strays in the Shanti Nagar-Langford Town area with her group, says four new dogs have shown up since Deepavali. “We are now planning to vaccinate and sterilise them,” says the college student, even while on the lookout for her six-year-old, Biscuit.

Some feeders say crackers are still bursting intermittently, so they now feed dogs in the morning, as many hide in shock at night. Those who continue feeding after dark spend much longer searching for the frightened animals.

However, J P Nagar resident Harini Raghavan's observations have been different. According to her, the volume of displaced dogs from other areas has been "much lower". For their own community dogs, they took several precautions: they put collars with contact details marked in permanent ink, boarded 12 and housed 10 'runner dogs', and patrolled with the 112 police to ensure the cracker bursting rule was being followed. “Drains have been a big asset for stray dogs to hide,” she says.

Some tips to find missing strays

* Create a poster with details: photo, last-seen location, description of the collar and appearance, health, and caretaker contact.
* Set up a search party via an open WhatsApp group.
* Inform your local ABC centre, BBMP, police, and RWA. 
* Join a local Canine Squad (www.bit.ly/SquadJoin) or groups like
Diwali Dogs (84318 04142)