Pets in Pune, 2026: a 2023 census of 1.79 lakh street dogs that a new one is about to replace, 30,613 dog bites in 2025 and 24,803 in seven months of 2026, 57,852 sterilisations in a year, a Rs 50 licence with 3,522 takers, 57 listed clinics with 9 open all night, and a Rs 37 crore budget

Pets in Pune: the city's numbers on one page

Pune's numbers come from a corporation that counts and then restates. Fifteen figures, from fourteen sources, with the versions where they differ.

Two rows carry the weight. Pune's street dog count fell by 43 percent between its two censuses, and its dog bites rose by 150 percent over the same years and have not stopped. The rest of this report is about a corporation that sterilises more dogs a year than Mumbai plans to, and records more bites a year than Mumbai did in 2021.

How many street dogs Pune has: 3.15 lakh in 2018, 1.79 lakh in 2023, and five estimates since

Pune has two censuses five years apart and a third on tender. Between them the corporation's own estimates have run from 80,000 to 2.5 lakh.

The Pune Municipal Corporation's official data put the city's street dogs at 3,15,000 in 2018 and 1,79,940 in 2023, 'a decline of 42.87% over the span of five years', and its veterinary officer Dr Sarika Funde gave the 2023 census as 'around 1.79 lakh' again in July 2026 when the corporation floated a tender for a fresh survey, expected to cost about Rs 25 lakh and take nearly a year, that 'will, for the first time, include the 32 villages recently merged into the civic limits' and follows the Supreme Court's directions on monitoring and feeding spots. The estimates in between vary with the teller: 'approximately 1.89 lakh in 2023', risen to 2.25 lakh with the villages, against NGO estimates of 2.5 to 3 lakh, in May 2025; 'between 2.25 lakh and 2.5 lakh' in March 2026; and 'around 80,000 within its limits' in August 2026.

The state's census is of no help at the city scale: Maharashtra reported 12,76,399 stray dogs in 2019, 5 percent more than in 2012 and 10.4 per 1,000 people. Bonbeno's street dog report sets Pune's two censuses beside Mumbai's, which fell 4.64 percent over ten years to 90,757, and Bengaluru's 2,79,335; Pune's 1.79 lakh is twice Mumbai's count in a city with less than half the people, and its sterilised share, unlike theirs, has never been published, which makes it the one large Indian city with two censuses and no measure of what they achieved.

Dog bites: 30,613 cases in 2025, 24,803 in seven months of 2026, and a rabies record the corporation has stopped counting

Pune's bite count has risen every year since 2019 and is on course for its highest in 2026. Which number to use for any one year depends on who was asked.

Pune recorded 30,613 dog bite cases in 2025 and 24,803 between January and July 2026, more than 70 percent of the previous year in seven months, with July's 4,887 the highest month and May's 2,657 the lowest, so the two monsoon months of June and July carried 38 percent of the seven-month count. The state's industries minister told the Maharashtra legislative council in July 2025 that Pune had 16,569 cases in 2022, 22,945 in 2023 and 25,899 in 2024; the corporation's own records as reported in December 2024 gave 16,077, 22,495 and 23,374 to November; the civic health department as reported in March 2026 gave 21,526, 26,105 and 30,790, 78,421 over three years; and the series before them ran 12,251 in 2019, 12,734 in 2020 and 15,972 in 2021. In May 2025 the paper's arithmetic was 81 people bitten a day. Bonbeno's Mumbai report records that Mumbai, with far more people, counted 79,252 in 2021 and 1,54,017 in 2025.

Rabies: 19 deaths in 2022 on the record, 'rabies-free' by 2025, and 9 in the district in a quarter

The corporation's rabies record stops in 2023. Its records showed 19 deaths from rabies in 2022, 14 in 2021, 3 in 2020, 12 in 2019 and 17 in 2018, and 3 in the first weeks of 2023, with the vaccine stocked at all 45 of its outpatient departments and 18 maternity homes; by May 2025 the same paper that reported the bites wrote that 'the city has remained free of rabies so far', and the microchipping programme's stated goal is a rabies-free Pune by 2030. The state's health department counts by district: in January to March 2026 Pune led Maharashtra with 54,662 dog bites and nine deaths, ahead of Thane's 47,940 and two and Mumbai's 37,242 and one, in a quarter in which the state registered over 4.88 lakh bites and 19 deaths, and the department's own series ran from 8.09 lakh bites in 2023 to 15.19 lakh in 2025. Maharashtra's IDSP figures, 4,85,345 bites and 14 deaths in 2024, are in Bonbeno's dog bite report Press Information Bureau, Stray dogs; the district figure is the one that includes Pune's hospitals, where patients from the city and beyond are counted together.

The Animal Birth Control programme: 57,852 sterilisations in a year, 1,40,311 microchips, 294 a day on contract, and Rs 37 crore

Pune's programme is the best funded of the eight cities per dog counted. Its output is reported in two currencies, surgeries and microchips, that nearly agree.

'As many as 57,852 dogs were sterilised in 2023-24 and 56,511 in 2024-25', the state's industries minister told the legislative council, 'over one lakh canines' in two years. The corporation's microchip count runs alongside: 66,537 dogs chipped in 2024-25, 61,454 in 2025-26 and 12,320 between January and June 2026, 1,40,311 in all, each chip recording the dog's sterilisation and anti-rabies vaccination status toward a rabies-free Pune by 2030. Three contracted agencies 'can sterilise and vaccinate 294 dogs daily', and under the Universal Animal Welfare Society 1,40,081 dogs were vaccinated between April 2025 and February 2026. Against the 2023 census, 57,852 surgeries is 32 percent of the city's dogs in a year; Mumbai's 2026 plan, by comparison, is 45,000 a year against 90,757 dogs.

Rs 37 crore, three mega shelters for 11,000 dogs, and 88 feeding spots

The corporation 'has earmarked Rs 37 crore in its 2026-27 budget' for stray dog control: Rs 31 crore for sterilisation surgeries and vaccination of dogs and cats, Rs 1.20 crore for dog pounds and veterinary clinics and Rs 5 crore to expand the pounds for capture operations, and has identified three sites, Shindewadi Octroi Naka, Bhugaon Octroi Naka and Ramtekadi Industrial Estate in Hadapsar, for mega shelters to house dogs picked up from the sensitive areas the Supreme Court named. The three shelters are to house 11,000 street dogs on a Rs 25 crore allocation, with one nearly complete for about 1,000, and the city has 88 designated feeding spots whose list a corporator has asked to be published; the corporation already runs three shelters at Baner, Mundhwa and Naidu Pond and five dog-catching vans, one per administrative zone. The Supreme Court's 7 November 2025 order is what the sensitive areas and the shelters answer to: schools, hospitals, sports complexes, bus stands and railway stations fenced, and the dogs found there moved to shelters after sterilisation and vaccination, while a dog caught anywhere else is returned to its locality under rule 11(19) of the Animal Birth Control Rules, 2023.

Veterinary care: a state network with 38.5 percent of its doctor posts empty, and 57 private clinics of which 9 never close

Maharashtra has the most registered vets of any state and the largest absolute vacancy. Pune's private layer is the longest list in Bonbeno's directory.

Maharashtra had 11,257 registered veterinary practitioners on 31 March 2024, more than any other state, and 2,165 of its 5,622 sanctioned doctor posts vacant, 38.5 percent. Its 4,856 government institutions are 39 veterinary hospitals and polyclinics, 1,976 dispensaries and 2,841 aid centres, and its 80 mobile veterinary units cover 0.2 per lakh livestock against the central norm of one. Bonbeno's Vet Access Index ranks the state 15th of 35 on livestock per vet; in the city the Government Veterinary Hospital at Aundh, with 874 Google reviews, is the state facility a pet owner meets.

The private layer: 57 clinics, 9 of them 24-hour clinics

Bonbeno's vet directory for Pune, each entry checked against its Google listing on 16 October 2026 for an address, a live phone number and the hours the clinic itself publishes, lists 57 clinics and hospitals, the longest list of the eight cities, 9 of which publish round-the-clock opening: Crown Vet's clinics at Kalyani Nagar and Aundh, Tranquil Paws in Baner, Petaegis at Hingne Khurd, Raintree at Ghorpadi, My Pet Clinic at Wadgaon Sheri, G.R.B. Pet Clinic, and two clinics named Pet Health Clinic, at Anand Nagar and Raviwar Peth, which the directory does not treat as one chain because a shared name is not proof of a shared owner. Thirty-four of the 57 are rated 4.5 or higher and 19,274 Google reviews sit behind an average of 4.43, fifth of the eight cities, Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Kolkata and Ahmedabad; 27 have a website. The pull returned 60 records and 57 were published, the highest hit rate in the directory, against Chennai's 23 of 48.

The directory's method note records the Pune trap: Google's emergency category sits on seven clinics that are not open round the clock, and one clinic opens its own description with '24 hours veterinary clinic open' on a profile whose hours say 11 am to 8 pm, so the 24-hour flag is set from published hours alone. The Google Maps 'pet grooming' pull of 2 November 2026 returned 45 pet groomers, 25 pet stores and 13 boarding listings in its first 100 results, and the 'pet boarding' pull 76 boarding, day-care, walker or sitter listings, 4 cat boarding services and 3 breeders. What a consultation, a vaccination or a surgery costs is in Bonbeno's guide to what a vet visit costs in India.

Shops, groomers and boarders: 300 Google Maps listings, the best-reviewed groomers of any city, and a state that reports on its pet shops

Pune's pet retail is chain-heavy, well reviewed and open late. Its state is the one that told the Animal Welfare Board how the pet shop rules were going.

Of the first 100 Google Maps results for 'pet shop' in Pune, 91 are pet stores or pet supply stores, 4 are aquarium shops, 3 are boarding, breeding or cafe listings and 2 are not pet businesses; none is marked closed, 96 are rated, the median listing has 61 reviews, 74 percent score 4.5 or higher, 41 percent have a website, 20 claim 24-hour opening and 18 names advertise live animals, puppies or birds. Heads Up For Tails appears three times and JUSTDOGS twice. The grooming pull is the best reviewed of the eight cities: 45 pet groomers, a median of 77 reviews, 88.8 percent at 4.5 or higher, 49 percent with a website, and Heads Up For Tails, JUSTDOGS and Zigly three times each with Wiggles once; the boarding pull 76 boarding, day-care, walker or sitter listings, 85.7 percent of the rated ones at 4.5 or higher, 36 percent with a website and 41 claiming 24-hour opening. Bonbeno's dog grooming cost guide and boarding versus a pet sitter cover the prices and the choice.

Registered pet shops: the one state that reported, and a court that asked for the number

Every shop that sells an animal needs a certificate from the State Animal Welfare Board under the Pet Shop Rules, 2018. Maharashtra is the one state the Animal Welfare Board of India said, in December 2023, had sent the progress of implementing the Rules, though the number of shops registered was not provided by any state; in August 2021 the Bombay High Court directed the Board to report how many pet shops in the state were registered and operating as per the rules, and no figure has been published since. Bonbeno's pet shops report carries the Rules clause by clause and the one state register that exists; Google classes three Pune listings in the boarding pull as 'Dog breeder', which under the 2017 breeding rules means a registration of their own.

The pet licence: Rs 50 a year or Rs 500 for ten, online since 2022, mandatory, and 3,522 dogs that hold one

Pune's licence is cheap, online and barely taken. The corporation has published the uptake, which is more than most cities do.

The Pune Municipal Corporation registers pet dogs online, through its citizen services portal, for an upfront Rs 500 'for a ten-year period (equivalent to Rs 50 per year)', with the renewal fee set at Rs 25, and had issued 3,522 dog licences and 162 cat licences by January 2024. When the online system was two months old, in May 2023, the chief veterinary officer Dr Sarika Funde said 'over 1,500 pet owners have registered their pets online' against 3,500 offline registrations, that 'the annual fees for registration are Rs 50', that each pet needs its own application, and that 'pet registration is mandatory under the law'. The documents are the vaccination certificate, residence proof with a no-objection certificate from the housing society, a property tax receipt, and photographs of the pet from the front, left and right, self-attested and under 2 MB each Pune Pulse, 'Pune.

Against the 2.25 lakh street dogs the corporation estimates and the pet population it has never estimated, 3,522 licensed dogs is the smallest uptake of any city in this series that publishes one: Hyderabad had 14,000 on a free licence, Chennai 73,754 under a Rs 5,000 fine. No fine is stated for Pune, which may be why. Bonbeno's guide to dog registration in India walks the portal beside every other city's, and the metro guide covers what the Pune Metro allows. Housing societies work under the Animal Welfare Board of India's guideline, which Bonbeno's guide to pets in apartments in India reads beside Mumbai's municipal version.

When a pet dies: a municipal incinerator near Naidu Hospital since 2019, Rs 2,000 for a dog or cat, and no rate card since

Pune was the first civic body in Maharashtra to run an animal crematorium. What it charges today is not written anywhere this report could find.

The corporation's incinerator for pets and small animals near Naidu Hospital opened in November 2019 as 'the first-ever animal crematorium in the State for animals to be run by a civic body', a 2,000 square foot building that 'cost an estimated Rs 98 lakh', with a proposed charge of Rs 2,000 'per cremation of a domestic dog and cat', Rs 3,000 for large domestic animals, free cremation of stray animals, and transport of a dead pet to the plant for Rs 200. No later report this report could reach states the current charge or hours, so the price is what the helpline quotes on the day; Mumbai's three municipal crematoria and Chennai's one print theirs, as Bonbeno's city reports record.

The steps, the paperwork and the private options are in Bonbeno's guide to what to do when your pet dies in India.

What a Pune pet owner can do with these numbers

Seven things that follow from the record, in the order a new owner meets them.

1. License the dog on the corporation's portal: Rs 500 for ten years, or Rs 50 a year. It is mandatory, the documents are four, and 3,522 owners have done it.
2. Pick the 24-hour clinic before you need it. Nine of the 57 listed clinics publish round-the-clock opening, in Kalyani Nagar, Aundh, Baner, Hingne Khurd, Ghorpadi, Wadgaon Sheri, Anand Nagar and Raviwar Peth; the Pune vet directory marks them. Phone before you drive, because seven others carry Google's emergency label without the hours.
3. Vaccinate against rabies on schedule and treat every bite as urgent. The city recorded 24,803 bites in seven months of 2026, and the district nine rabies deaths in a quarter.
4. Feed street dogs at one of the 88 designated spots, and ask the corporation for the list.
5. Know which order applies to your building. Institutional premises are cleared to the mega shelters; residential lanes get sterilised dogs back.
6. Buy animals only from a shop that can show its Board certificate. Maharashtra reported on the Rules and published no register; the pet shops report lists what to ask.
7. Know the incinerator. Near Naidu Hospital, Rs 2,000 for a dog or cat at its 2019 rate; phone before you go.

What this data does not measure

Each figure here was produced for a different purpose by a different office, and the limits travel with them.

• The two censuses are not described. No method, agency or sterilised share has been published for 2018 or 2023, and the corporation's own estimates since run from 80,000 to 2.5 lakh; the 2026 census on tender is the first that will include the merged villages.
• The bite series exists in three versions. The corporation's records, the minister's statement and the health department's figures differ by up to 1,419 cases for the same year; the report charts the most recent statement of each year and prints every version in the dataset.
• The rabies record is two contradictory claims. The corporation recorded 19 deaths in 2022; a 2025 report says the city has been rabies-free; the district figures include hospitals that treat patients from outside the city.
• Sterilisations and microchips are two counts of what is probably one event, reported by two offices for overlapping years, and neither is reconciled to the census.
• The licence uptake is from January 2024. No later count has been published, and no fine is stated anywhere.
• The incinerator's charges are its 2019 proposal. No current rate card or operating hours could be found.
• The directory is a window, not a census. Pune's 57 listings come from a 60-record pull; the Google Maps pulls are the first 100 results for one search term each, classified by Google's category field, and a 24-hour claim is unverified.

How this report was built

Every figure was read from the document cited, and the Google Maps layer was produced by scripts kept with the report.

1. The census figures are from Punekar News of 15 July 2023 and Pune Pulse of 29 July 2026; the estimates from the Free Press Journal of 1 May 2025, 6 March 2026 and 21 August 2026 Free Press Journal Free Press Journal; the state census from the Rajya Sabha reply used in Bonbeno's street dog report.
2. The bite and rabies figures are from Punekar News of 23 February 2023, the Free Press Journal of 23 December 2024, ThePrint's report of the legislative council of 11 July 2025, the Free Press Journal of 6 March and 21 August 2026 Free Press Journal and its report of the state's first-quarter figures of 24 May 2026; the IDSP figures from Annexure I to the Lok Sabha reply of 1 April 2025 as published by the Press Information Bureau.
3. The sterilisation, microchip, vaccination, budget and shelter figures are from ThePrint of 11 July 2025, Pune Pulse of 13 July 2026, Punekar News of 26 May 2026 and the Free Press Journal of 19 March 2026; the Supreme Court order from All India Radio's report of 7 November 2025 and rule 11(19) from the Animal Birth Control Rules, 2023 as gazetted.
4. The licence rules and uptake are from Pune Pulse of 3 May 2023 and Punekar News of 12 January 2024. The incinerator is from The Bridge Chronicle of 4 November 2019. The pet shop record is the Animal Welfare Board of India's circular of 28 December 2023 and the Free Press Journal's report of the Bombay High Court of 26 August 2021. The state veterinary figures are the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha replies used in the Vet Access Index Open Government Data Platform India Lok Sabha, Unstarred Question 1287.
5. The private clinic figures are counts over Bonbeno's Pune directory file as checked on 16 October 2026. The Google Maps layer is three Apify runs of the Google Maps Scraper, 'pet shop' on 1 November 2026 and 'pet grooming' and 'pet boarding' on 2 November 2026, 100 results each, classified by Google's primary category by the summary scripts in the research folder.