Dog days are here for India’s favorite pooch
img: via The Age

Those who live in India or have been there in the last couple of years must be familiar with the Vodafone pug.

A TV advertisement promoting the mobile phone company featuring the dog has captivated millions of Indians.

Sales of pug puppies have soared as children, smitten by scenes showing a lovable pug playing affectionately with a pretty little girl, have forced their parents to buy one for them too.

And pugs are a great choice for urban Indians, both in India and abroad. They are indoor dogs, great companions to humans and easily trained. However, depending on the way you look at it, those points are shortcomings also. Because they’re bred to be indoor, outside activity and hot weather can quickly dehydrate them, they are great companions but also extremely needy for attention and because they’re such smart dogs, they can be quite stubborn if they choose to.

The controversy focuses on one of these shortcomings - having a pug perform rigorous activity outdoors.

The charge is cruelty. In the commercial, after helping the girl fish and lick stamps, the pug suddenly realises that she has gone to school without her school tie. He runs down the road chasing the bus with the tie in his mouth.

“The pet dog was made to run, gallop and chase the school van for a long time on a public road. Thereby, the dog was made to undergo severe pain and suffering due to the exhaustion,” the board says in a legal petition.

In case you were wondering, that is a valid complain of animal cruelty. Pugs have extremely small snouts and cannot perform vigorous activities like running and jumping for long periods of time in hot conditions.

Here’s the video of the Vodafone commercial with the pug helping the little girl. [link]

It’s hard to tell from the video regarding the amount of physical activity this pug was made to perform and the length of time of the activity. One can assume there were multiple takes but that’s not to say they were not spread across multiple days. You be the judge.

If you haven’t go to YouTube.com and search for “Vodafone Pug” to see all the cute pug commercials that have taken India by storm.

India’s favorite pooch generates controversy - Über Desi

So what do our readers think? Is this decision ok considering how the bulls are treated, including getting them drunk and having them chased down by a bunch of drunk men? Or is the secular Supreme Court being too politically correct and destroying “Indian culture”?

Supreme Court calls bull on bull fighting festival - Über Desi

This shit is serious business
img: via eBay.com

Each specimen of rhino dung has been properly dried and sealed in an attractive container featuring the name of the rhino species that produced it.

You can bid on Greater One-Horned (Indian) Rhino dung at this listing, or visit one of our other three listings to bid on poop from Black Rhinos, White Rhinos, or the incredibly rare Sumatran Rhinos.

The population of Greater One-Horned, or Indian, Rhinos decreased to about 200 individuals at the turn of the 20th century, but with strict protection by Indian and Nepalese wildlife authorities, there are now more than 2,600 rhinos. Unfortunately, however, more than 85% of these rhinos inhabit one national park in India, exposing the animals to the risk that a single catastrophe could lead to serious population decline.

The rhino dung auction will begin on Thursday night, November 29, 2007 and end December 9, 2007, so that the dung can be shipped in time for the holidays.

Winning bidders can choose to have their purchase shipped directly to themselves or to a chosen gift recipient. (We can only ship within the U.S.)

This is not a load of crap!

International Rhino Foundation has come up with a novel idea to raise money for the endangered species, auction their excretion of ebay. [link]

A non-profit group is selling pieces of “rhino poop” on eBay.

The International Rhino Foundation says bidders have their choice of black rhino poop, white rhino poop, Indian rhino poop and Sumatran rhino poop.

Watch this hilarious commercial on rhino poop … the gift that keeps on giving.

Bidding ends soon. Give someone the gift of rhino poop this Christmas.

Indian Rhino excretions for sale on eBay.com - Über Desi

Adopt an animal, get a tax break - Über Desi

From IndiaeNews.com:

Devotees in Orissa’s Jajpur and Puri districts sacrificed hundreds of goats and lambs to invoke goddess Kali’s blessings, eyewitnesses said Saturday.
The culling, which started Friday night continued till Saturday.
About 120 goats and lambs were sacrificed Saturday morning at the Maa Kali temple in Katarapur village of Jajpur district, some 100 km from the state capital Bhubaneswar, a villager told IANS

Mola Ram approves.

Humor aside, this is a serious issue. The media was prevented by the temple authorities from accessing this ceremony. While that is deplorable, it may not necessarily be such a bad thing given the propensity of Indian media to sensationalize these happenings instead of discussing the underlying issues. The underlying issue is that while most Hindus largely condemn activities like animal sacrifice, it still exists in this day and age.

While this may sound like comparing apples to papayas, a man marrying a dog to “atone” for his bad karma of killing mating dogs [link], Aishwarya Rai reportedly marrying trees because she was a manglik [link], people mistaking barking dogs for praying dogs [link], Nepal’s pre-adolescent goddess [link] and parents indulging in at-home blood transfusions among siblings to transfer “smarts” [link], are all intertwined to this barbaric ritual of animal sacrifice in Hindu temples [link], whether we like or not. These incidents stem from superstitions, religion-sponsored superstitions. The religion happens to be Hinduism in this case.

People may point to the governor of Georgia praying for rain [link] and make a counter point that other religions have their own superstitions also. My answer is, so what? Two wrongs does not a right make and an act of blind faith by someone from a different religion or country does not make our homegrown superstitions any more legitimate.

Perhaps a good starting point to rid our society of these superstitions would be to eliminate minor religious superstitions like the nimbu-mirchi and kaala teeka from our daily lives.

Note: Yes, it did rain in Georgia a day after the governor held his prayer session. Miracle, perhaps? Not!! Any idiot with an internet connection could’ve looked up weather.com days in advance and seen a storm system heading for the entire east coast. How convenient, the governor would hold his prayer session for rain a day before the storm system hit his state.

And the barbaric ritual of animal sacrifice lives on……. - Über Desi

I saw a video where a municipality worker caught a dog with a steel wire and the poor dog was still wagging its tail thinking its in for a treat. Its head was smashed in moments later.

There are more humane approaches to ending an animal’s life but the concept seems ‘phoren’ to the authorities.
Now for the extreme approach angle. A boy was killed by dogs. That is a tragic incident and human lives are more precious. But I have to question the wisdom of putting down hundreds and reportedly even thousands of dogs. This is probably not the first time dogs are being put to death in large numbers. If there was a massive outbreak of rabies or some dog-to-human contagious disease, then this approach, albeit brutal, would make sense in terms of practicality. Areas with human population are most likely to have large stray population of canines and felines. In some areas, authorities take a more civilzed approach by conducting massive nuetering of stray animals, put them in shelters to reduce their contact with humans and if the population gets out of hand, performing euthanasia among the problematic species. Waiting till the population gets out of hand and then doing an Attila the Hun on them, is a disservice to the animals, humans and reflects badly on our society in general.

Disclaimer: I may come off as biased on this topic but as a proud friend of two canine companions and as someone who has worked with local animal rescue groups, I completely understand the pros and cons of keeping an animal alive versus putting it to sleep, and if so, the best way to help them pass on. If you have a strawman argument like “You value animals over human life”, please refer to Pranav’s blog linked above, as he has addressed all straw man points related to this topic in a manner far more effectively than I can.

Bangalore’s Dog days - Über Desi