Tails Wagging Dogs - and The Law

As frustrated as I am about the SC's order on stray dogs - I'm more annoyed that in this edition of Being Bayesian, there are no stats, charts, or data. And without data, all I can do is rant.

Cookie was only months old when she broke free for the first time.

I was walking her in the lane behind my house when she saw something, probably a cat. With one tight jerk, she lunged, her collar snapped and she disappeared. I ran after her, but even as a puppy with legs barely six inches long, she was disproportionately faster. Even today, she can be caught only if she wants to be caught.

I asked bystanders if they saw her. They pointed in the direction of my house. She's smart, I thought, she can find her way home. Then I heard distant barks - from at least two other dogs. I haven't run faster in my life.

What I saw on my doorstep is seared in my mind.

There was a large bale of black and brown fur. My brain took a moment to resolve it into three huge dogs.

These three monstrously large¹ dogs had their backs to me, hackles raised and backs arched, all growling menacingly. One of them was Bobo, who we have otherwise loved as our own - but in that moment I wanted to kill him. Another was a very old dog who used to frequent the service lane behind my house. I never saw him again. And the third dog was the resident stray of the next lane. I've always very uncharitably called him the "asshole dog" because he stealthily attacked Cookie once later too.

Not one of them moved, nor made the slightest change in their stances as I stomped towards them, making every effort to stomp as loudly as possible.

And then I saw her over their shoulders.

She was on her hind legs, almost standing erect on them, her back glued to my front door. She was snarling with teeth bared, completely cornered and desperate. Her pursuers had had her to themselves for at least a minute before I showed up - and in that minute, they could have torn her apart.

Even when she was standing erect, she was just about a foot tall. But there was an indignation, an anger in all six kilos of her. I can’t imagine something barely larger than a football having so much ferocity and menace. I could not be more proud. After some frantic shouting and stomping, I managed to shoo the dogs off. Cookie had held her ground honourably.

But since then, Cookie has hated stray dogs with a vengeance. She can easily pass off as an RWA uncle. She would even make an excellent amicus curiae in the Supreme Court's quest for a Delhi free of strays.

Bobo - generously loving and impossibly handsome for a stray. The picture was taken months before Cookie came into our lives, on the same doorstep where he’d later terrorize her.

Cookie has a very different relationship with Bobo now. Over the years they have been playmates, enemies and friends. Now, as age catches up with Bobo, they are simply tolerant of each other. I saw Cookie's anger fade away gradually, as she started regarding Bobo with curiosity - sometimes cautious and sometimes playful.

Cookie was angry that there’s a door between her and the sleeping Bobo - but secretly she was thankful.

The more I think of it, the more I realize that that's exactly how I write editions of Being Bayesian². My first draft is, without exception, an angry rant at something outrageous. It's never published. I just let it cook and gestate for a few weeks. Then, when the anger has faded away and I've developed a healthy degree of detachment from the original draft - I go to work. It also helps that I'm a better editor than a writer.

After the anger and indignation have evaporated, all that's left is curiosity - cautious and playful. I have no choice except to be level-headed. This is the right time to look for solid, reliable data which could illuminate whatever it is that I was earlier mad about. The analysis which follows often breaks my own biases (called "priors" in Bayesian inference) - and if I'm lucky, it helps me make my point about how some arbitrary opinion was laughable.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to follow my process in this instance. I can't let my rant sit for weeks, because honestly, there's a lot which I want to get off my chest. I tried very hard looking for reasonably reliable data, but such data as there is, is mired in contradictions. In fact, unlike my other posts, there are no charts in this one. I'll make do with pictures of dogs, instead.

Substituting images, feelings and memory for evidence is precisely the sort of thing that would otherwise send me flying off the handle. But the recent order about the stray dog menace from the Hon'ble Supreme Court is so devoid of rationality and the scientific method, that by rambling on as I am now, I hope to even ingratiate myself with the bench.

Here, in a nutshell, is what they want:

Catch, sterilize, vaccinate and permanently impound the nearly one million stray dogs in Delhi NCR within eight weeks.

That was, at least, the impression they gave in their oral observations on the 11th of August. After the following outrage, when the official order was released, some of the most blatantly impractical aspects were rethought. For example, they talk of first building capacity for 5000 dogs and then expanding progressively. Starting with 5000 dogs and covering up to potentially a million dogs is a tall order, and not only because of the thousand-to-million order-of-magnitude difference.

Since there's no other reliable data, let us constrain ourselves to look at only these two numbers: 5000 and 1 million. As you'll see, that alone is baffling enough. Nobody knows where either of those numbers came from. Apparently, nobody knows much at all about the size of the problem, as Vignesh Radhakrishnan of the Hindu says here:

So what makes the court think that 5000 is a good number to start with? For one, The MCD has only 20 animal birth control centres in Delhi, most of which are run in partnerships with NGOs. They can barely hold 2,500 dogs at a time. Moreover, they are predominantly medical facilities, not long-term shelters. There's also the question of cost - the cost of feeding, vaccines, staffing, construction and logistics - which the order does not consider. A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that unless the MCD can somehow conjure double the space, much more staff, and a steady operating budget of ₹20+ crore within weeks, even these initial 5000 dogs will go to the dogs.

I'll hasten to add that all of these numbers are built on sand. Even the figure of 1 million stray dogs in Delhi NCR is a wild guess. The last census happened in 2009 which counted approximately half a million strays. That number supposedly grew to 8 lakhs in 2019, again based only on an estimate. For the 1 million figure, there's no data at all.

Most baffling of all, is the fact that the SC's order mandates an outcome, not a process. Not only does it ignore basic math, it assumes a budget that doesn't exist - all while not pulling up the governing bodies for not doing their jobs.

---

Bobo, battle-scarred and older now, with Cookie.

For a decade, Bobo has been a resident stray of my lane. Pretty much everybody here loves him - which is remarkable in itself. On the other hand, since August 11, some members of the RWA have become somewhat trigger-happy - encouraging residents and guards to photograph and report stray dogs all over the colony to the MCD. But O Judgment! Until thou art fled to brutish beasts, and men have lost their reason, Bobo will stay with Cookie.

I love dogs. I have been bitten by three of them (and a cat), and I have had the misfortune of having to search frantically for rabies vaccine - even in a place like Delhi. So while I admit that I have a personal stake in this matter, it also bears mention that none of this really has to do with how you feel about dogs.

It's about how the math isn't mathing in the first place. Piyush Goyal might be okay with that - responsible citizens should not be.

---

Disclaimer: The Hon’ble Supreme Court has since the time of writing this, referred the matter to a larger bench, which was heard on the 14th of August 2025. The official order is yet to be published.

1. Anything is huge and monstrous compared to Cookie - the size of your dog quickly becomes a measure for the size of all dogs. Compared to Cookie, Bruno (Aditi’s GSD at her parents’ place) is a horse, and a real horse is an elephant. Aditi has had massive German Shepherds all her life. But after these last few years with Cookie, even she is surprised at how big they can get. But I think there's only one unit of measurement that matters, when it comes to dogs - there are dogs that can be bodily picked up, and those that cannot.

2. I've written only three over the last six months, not counting this one. It's exceedingly pompous of me to write about this as if it were a battle-tested process, but I'll allow myself the indulgence.