An estimated 200 million stray dogs globally face welfare challenges from disease, injury, and inhumane culling. Effective and humane approaches to stray dog management are a major welfare challenge.
Stray dogs face daily welfare challenges from territorial conflicts causing bite wounds, vehicle strikes, human harassment, and the stress of unreliable food sources. Mass culling — using poisoned baits (often strychnine, causing convulsions and prolonged death), shooting, or electrocution — is inhumane, ineffective, and contradicted by international veterinary guidance. TNR with rabies vaccination addresses population growth and disease transmission simultaneously while improving individual welfare through neutering (reducing injury from mating conflicts) and vaccination. Dog shelters in many countries provide temporary welfare but often at inadequate standards. Community-based TNR programmes with vaccination have demonstrably stabilised dog populations in multiple countries.