An animal rescuer from Noida, Uttar Pradesh, has taken up the mission of protecting stray dogs in his locality by using reflective dog collars. These collars prevent motorists from knocking down or running over stray dogs at night.
Vikas, a software engineer at Adobe, is an animal rescuer. He goes by the Instagram username @stella_the_desi_dog, named after a stray dog that he rescued seven years ago. Vikas and his wife Anchal care for, feed, vaccinate, and sterilise street dogs in and around their neighbourhood. They use their Insta account to raise awareness about animals, in order to minimise animal cruelty and reduce human-animal conflict.
In the month of August this year, Vikas lost three stray dogs to road accidents. He also noticed that the bikers involved in the accident were injured, so he decided to use reflective dog collars for the stray dogs at ETA-2, Greater Noida.
Vikas strapping the reflective collar on a street dog. Pic credits: Anchal
Although this is a noble cause that has borne results, Vikas has his struggles. "I have used reflective collars of different brands and types but have not been successful in finding the right one for streeties," he says. "I have tried three times with 20 dogs at a time. For their safety, I keep the collars a bit loose, with 2 finger gaps, but in all cases, within 1-2 months, 80% of dogs lose their collars." Stray dogs may not be comfortable with dog collars, and some use them as a toy; therefore, they get removed and lost.
Some villagers also take the dog collars from the stray dogs for their own pets, so Vikas tried to distribute dog collars to dog owners too. Unfortunately, he could not cover everyone in his locality. However, he still works to protect stray dogs using sturdier reflective collars. "My aim is to cover a large area once I get a 90% success rate in local drives and find perfect collars," he says. "Next, I shall try collars for cows, as they are not as naughty as dogs."