Who let the dogs out?

A lady died of a heart attack when she was chased by a dog in Aundh.
A child''s face was disfigured by another dog when he was returning home from school.
Gaurav, an IT professional, is chased on his bike by a group of stray dogs every night when he is returning from office late.
THESE, and several related cases, have highlighted the stray dog menace in the city in recent years.
From 5,600 dog-bite cases in 2001 (reported at Sassoon Hospital), the figure has gone up to an alarming 8,751 in 2002.
Till May 2003, the hospital had a total 3,815 dog-bite patients. However, according to the hospital medical officer, Namdeo Patil, 70 per cent of dog-bite cases were from pet dogs.
The recent World Health Organisation research proves that the dog population in urban cities grows in direct proportion to human growth, which is close to three per cent in India. It’s known that open garbage is the root cause for this problem.
As the Blue Cross Society struggles with funds in a bid to sterilise dogs to bring down the menace, the recent incident of dog-poisoning in Koregaon Park has raised quite a furore. Incidentally, all these eight dogs found dead had earlier been sterilised by the society members.
However, Narendra Thakur, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) medical officer, says this poisoning could have been done by any of the local people. The PMC officer claims that ten dogs are sterilised everyday.
Which means at least 25,550 dogs should have been covered under the drive in the last seven years. But according to the Blue Cross Society, which handles the entire operation in Pune, only 19,000 stray dogs have been sterilised.
An angry Sunanda Das of the Blue Cross Society alleges, “The PMC is not doing the work they are supposed to. We want to sterilise 70 dogs per week, but the PMC has given us every single excuse under the sun for not doing so.�