Stray dogs in Gujarat, 2026: 9,31,170 counted in 2019, dog bites up 132 percent in two years to 3,92,837, 13 of 34 districts with no sterilisation centre, a High Court running the programme by suo motu order, 55.9 percent of government veterinary posts vacant, the highest share in India, and a capital that charges Rs 2,000 for a dog licence

Stray dogs in Gujarat: the state's numbers on one page

Gujarat's numbers come from a census, a national table, a High Court's questions and a capital that publishes claims. Sixteen rows, from fifteen sources.

Two rows carry the weight. Gujarat's recorded dog bites rose 131.9 percent in two years, from 1,69,363 in 2022 to 3,92,837 in 2024, the steepest rise of any large state, and its government told the High Court in 2026 that 13 of its 34 districts have no sterilisation centre at all. The rest of this report is about a state whose capital claims nine dogs in ten sterilised while a third of its districts have no sterilisation centres at all.

How many stray dogs Gujarat has: 9.31 lakh in 2019, up 10 percent, a capital counted once in 2019, and a city whose RTI count is a hundredth of its surgery claim

The census says the state's dogs grew. Its two largest cities have one count each, and neither matches the surgeries they report.

Gujarat had 9,31,170 stray dogs in the 20th Livestock Census of 2019, 10.1 percent more than the 8,46,093 of 2012, the eighth-largest count of any state, and 13.7 dogs for every 1,000 people National Commission on Population. In 2012, 23.1 percent of its stray dogs were counted in urban areas and the rest in rural ones; the 2019 census also recorded 3,43,918 stray cattle, the third-largest count in India after Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. The census is a household-enumerator estimate by village and ward, and Bonbeno's street dog report explains why it under-reads cities; the 21st Livestock Census had published no state stray dog table by 2 November 2026.

Ahmedabad: 2.10 lakh in 2019, 89 percent claimed sterilised, and a census begun to find out

Ahmedabad's last count was a random census in 2019 that found about 2.10 lakh street dogs, and in June 2026 the head of its Cattle Nuisance Control Department claimed 89 percent sterilisation coverage, with over 1.88 lakh dogs sterilised at Rs 18.11 crore over seven years; the corporation's own estimates since have run from 3.75 lakh with the expanded limits in 2023 to about 2 lakh in 2025 and 1.5 lakh in January 2026, when daily procedures had fallen from 150 to 170 to 30 to 35 for want of unsterilised dogs to catch. A census of all 48 wards, nine months long, by teams of three volunteers with a mobile application, began in May 2026 under the Supreme Court's directive. Bonbeno's Ahmedabad report sets the claim beside Bengaluru's measured 71.81 percent and Mumbai's 62.9 percent; Ahmedabad's 89 is derived from surgery records against an estimate, as Hyderabad's over 80 is.

Surat: 2,754 dogs in the RTI reply, 30,300 sterilised by the corporation's account

An RTI reply from the Animal Husbandry Department put Surat's stray dogs at 2,754 in a 2018 survey, while the Surat Municipal Corporation said it had captured 33,761 dogs between 2018-19 and 2022-23, sterilised and vaccinated 30,300 of them and spent Rs 3.28 crore, a contradiction the corporation did not explain; the city reports 50 to 70 bites a day. In the four months to January 2026 its records showed 2,976 more dogs sterilised and vaccinated. Vadodara, Rajkot and Gandhinagar appear in this report only through the High Court's count of centres.

Dog bites and rabies: 3.93 lakh bites in 2024, up 132 percent in two years, and a capital at 5,000 a month

Gujarat's bite count doubled in two years in the national table. Whether dogs or reporting did it, the table cannot say.

The IDSP table laid before the Lok Sabha gives Gujarat 1,69,363 dog bites in 2022, 2,78,537 in 2023, 3,92,837 in 2024 and 53,942 in January 2025, 542.8 per lakh people in 2024 against 265.7 for India and the third-highest rate among the large states after Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, with 0, 3 and 1 suspected rabies deaths. The IDSP counts presentations at reporting public facilities, so the doubling measures a state whose facilities report more and whose people present more as well as its dogs; no Gujarat department publishes a series of its own, and Bonbeno's dog bite report prints the IDSP table for every state so that Gujarat's 543 per lakh can be set beside Maharashtra's 381 and Uttar Pradesh's 69.

Ahmedabad: 99,018 bites in 2025, no rabies death, and a death under investigation

Ahmedabad's table runs 69,790 dog bites in 2023, 60,663 in 2024 and 99,018 in 2025, with cat bites rising from 1,628 to 4,900, in a report headlined on 77,019 'in a year' that its own table does not support; the corporation described the rate as nearly 5,000 people bitten a month, about 180 a day, when it announced the census, and anti-rabies doses at its 35 facilities had risen from 5,000 to 5,500 a month to 7,000 to 7,500, a fifth to a quarter of them for people from outside its limits. The corporation records no rabies death in 2025 and its last in 2024; a police inspector died in September 2025 of suspected rabies after a scratch from a vaccinated pet dog, with samples sent to the National Institute of Virology in Pune. The ICMR estimate for India is 5,726 rabies deaths a year against the 54 the surveillance table recorded in 2024, and Gujarat's single recorded death in 2024 against 3.93 lakh bites is where that gap is widest.

The Animal Birth Control programme: 23 centres in 16 districts, 13 districts with none, 36,132 surgeries in six months, and a High Court that set the method

Gujarat's sterilisation programme is now reported to a bench. The numbers below are what the state told it.

On 4 August 2026 the state's Government Pleader told the Gujarat High Court that Gujarat had 23 Animal Birth Control centres in 16 districts, two fully operational in Ahmedabad with two more planned, 29 additional centres proposed statewide, 81 veterinary professionals and 181 paramedic staff on the programme, 36,132 stray dogs sterilised in the past 180 days and about 44,483 vaccinated in the last six months, and that the number still awaiting sterilisation was not available. On 29 October the court was told that '13 of 34 districts in Gujarat do not have Animal Birth Control (ABC) centres', that 12 others have one each, that data on sterilisation and vaccination had been submitted for only 17 districts, and that 79,150 institutions had been inspected, 754 stray dogs removed from them and 7,130 premises cleared. Set against the census, 36,132 surgeries in six months is 3.9 percent of the state's dogs; Ahmedabad alone reported 98,333 sterilised from 2020 to 2023 at Rs 976.50 a dog, Rs 2.30 crore, Rs 2.56 crore and Rs 4.5 crore in the three years to 2022-23 and Rs 3 crore for shelters in its 2026-27 budget. In December 2025 the Urban Development department notified a 17-member state-level ABC implementation and monitoring committee under its secretary, with the Animal Welfare Board of India, the state Board, the Veterinary Council, Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar's corporations and the panchayats, to prepare district-wise dog population management plans and ensure shelters and veterinary facilities exist before ABC operations begin.

The court's method: territory by territory, sterilise, vaccinate, geo-tag, and start in Ahmedabad

The High Court took up the matter on its own motion in July 2026, issuing notices to the state, the Centre, the Animal Welfare Board of India, the National Highways Authority and every municipal corporation and asking for detailed reports on sterilisation, vaccination and rehabilitation. On 4 August the Chief Justice's bench suggested, orally, that stray dogs be 'sterilised, vaccinated and geo tagged territory wise in a phased manner', zone by zone with each dog returned to its own area, that Ahmedabad be the pilot, that dogs living in institutions be collared so the institution knows they belong there, and that wet waste in premises be photographed for the registry, observing that relocating a dog 'automatically makes him into an aggressive dog'. That is rule 11(19) of the Animal Birth Control Rules, 2023, which require release at the same locality, restated as a territory-wise work plan.

What the Centre pays and what the Supreme Court ordered

The Animal Welfare Board of India released no ABC grant to any state in 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24 or 2024-25; from 2025-26 the revised scheme offers Rs 800 per dog and Rs 600 per cat to bodies that follow the Rules. The Supreme Court's order of 22 August 2025 restored release after sterilisation, confined feeding to designated spots in each ward and impleaded every state; its order of 7 November 2025 told every local body to fence schools, hospitals, sports complexes, bus stands and railway stations and move dogs found there to shelters after sterilisation and vaccination; and on 19 May 2026 it upheld those directions. The 79,150 institutions inspected and 754 dogs removed that Gujarat reported in October 2026 are its compliance with the November order.

Veterinary care: 4,743 registered vets, more than half the government posts empty, and 17 private clinics in Ahmedabad

Gujarat has the highest veterinary vacancy rate in India and the shortest private clinic list of any city Bonbeno covers.

Gujarat had 4,743 registered veterinary practitioners on 31 March 2024, up from 3,750 in 2021, and 923 of its 1,652 sanctioned government veterinary doctor posts were vacant in December 2025, 55.9 percent, the highest share of any state in India against a national 25.8 percent. Its 2,064 government institutions are 34 veterinary hospitals and polyclinics, 891 dispensaries and 1,139 aid centres, and its 127 operational mobile veterinary units cover 0.5 per lakh livestock against the central norm of one. With 2,68,93,274 livestock in the 2019 census, the state has 5,670 livestock per registered vet against India's 6,106, 13,030 per government institution against 7,906, and 6.6 vets per lakh people against 6.3, which Bonbeno's Vet Access Index places 22nd of 35 states and territories; its four recognised veterinary colleges have 375 approved seats. The vacancy is the figure to hold: the state has the registered vets and has not hired them.

The private layer in Ahmedabad

Bonbeno's Ahmedabad vet directory lists 17 clinics and hospitals, 3 of which publish round-the-clock opening, the shortest list and the highest average rating of the eight cities it covers, 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. The Google Maps pull returned 61 pet stores and 23 aquarium, bird or reptile shops in the first 100 results for 'pet shop', 36 of whose names advertise live animals, the most of any city, and 38 groomers and 17 boarders. What a consultation, a vaccination or a surgery costs is in Bonbeno's guide to what a vet visit costs in India.

Pets and the rules: a Rs 2,000 dog licence and a Rs 200 cat licence in Ahmedabad, Rs 5,000 to register a pet shop, no register, and one crematorium

Gujarat regulates its pets from Gandhinagar and its capital charges more for a licence than any city in India. Neither publishes a count.

Ahmedabad made pet dog registration mandatory from 1 January 2025 at Rs 200, raised the fee to Rs 500, then Rs 1,000, then Rs 2,000 a year from October 2025, by which time it estimated nearly 50,000 pet dogs with less than half registered, and made cat registration mandatory at Rs 200 from July 2026. It is the highest dog licence fee of any Indian city Bonbeno has read and the only mandatory cat licence; no state rule exists, so in Surat, Vadodara and Rajkot the requirement is whatever that corporation has notified. Bonbeno's guide to dog registration in India walks the Ahmedabad portal beside every other city's, and its guide to pets in apartments in India reads the Animal Welfare Board of India's guideline that housing societies work under.

Pet shops and breeders: Rs 5,000 at Gandhinagar since 2020, and no count

Since 2020 every dog breeder, dog seller and pet shop in Gujarat has had to register with the Gujarat State Animal Welfare Board at Gandhinagar for Rs 5,000, under the Pet Shop Rules, 2018 and the Dog Breeding and Marketing Rules, 2017, and 'pet-shops can't be run without the registration of the firm', the Animal Husbandry department's Joint Director said in July 2021, promising surprise inspections and action under the Acts against the unregistered. The Rules require the Board's certificate before a local body can license a shop; the Animal Welfare Board of India's circular of December 2023 recorded that no state had provided its number of registered establishments, and Gujarat has published none since. Bonbeno's pet shops report carries the Rules clause by clause and the one state register that exists, Tamil Nadu's; the 36 Ahmedabad listings whose names advertise live animals are the number to set beside a register that does not.

Native breeds: none named for Gujarat on the register

No dog breed named for Gujarat is on ICAR's register of six Indian breeds or on the standard list of twenty, and the dog most of the state shares a street with is the Indian pariah dog. Bonbeno's report on the register carries the six.

When a pet dies: Behrampura, Rs 700, and 600 farewells in nine months

Gujarat's first municipal pet crematorium opened at the Cattle Nuisance Control Department's ABC centre in Behrampura, Ahmedabad, on 9 February 2026, built for Rs 30 lakh on CNG, taking up to three dogs at a time at about Rs 700 a dog, booked on the 155303 helpline against the pet's registration; by October it had cremated 600 animals, 547 pets and 53 strays, with requests for five to seven a day, and two more were planned for about Rs 60 lakh at Vastral and near the Ring Road. No other Gujarat city has reported a municipal facility. Bonbeno's cremation report has every facility's fee and hours, and its guide to when your pet dies in India the steps.

What a Gujarat pet owner can do with these numbers

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

1. In Ahmedabad, register the dog in the July to September window and the cat too. Rs 2,000 and Rs 200, with inspections promised for the unregistered; elsewhere, ask the corporation, because no state rule applies.
2. Vaccinate against rabies on schedule and treat every bite and scratch as urgent. The state recorded 3,92,837 bites in 2024, and Ahmedabad's one recent death followed a pet's scratch.
3. Pick the 24-hour clinic before you need it. Three of Ahmedabad's 17 listed clinics publish round-the-clock opening in Bonbeno's directory; outside the city, 127 mobile units cover half the norm.
4. Know which order applies to your building. Institutional premises are inspected and cleared to shelters under the 7 November 2025 order; a residential street gets its sterilised dogs back under rule 11(19), territory by territory as the High Court has directed.
5. If your district has no ABC centre, say so to the collector. Thirteen do not, and the state told the court it is building 29.
6. Buy an animal only from a shop or breeder that can show its Gandhinagar registration. It has been mandatory since 2020 at Rs 5,000; the pet shops report lists what to ask.
7. In Ahmedabad, know the crematorium and the helpline. Behrampura, about Rs 700, booked on 155303 against the registration.

What this data does not measure

Each figure here was produced by a different office for a different purpose, and the gaps are specific.

• The only statewide dog count is seven years old and is a household-enumerator estimate; Ahmedabad's 2019 figure is a 'random census' whose method is unpublished, and the 48-ward census begun in May 2026 had reported nothing by 2 November 2026.
• The bite doubling is a reporting series. The IDSP counts presentations at reporting public facilities; a state whose facilities joined the system between 2022 and 2024 would show the same rise with no change in its dogs; no Gujarat department publishes a series to check it against.
• Surat's two numbers cannot both be right, and the corporation has not said which is; the dataset prints both.
• The High Court figures are the state's statements to a bench, not audited counts, and the number of dogs still awaiting sterilisation was 'not available'.
• Ahmedabad's 89 percent is derived from surgery records against an estimate that has moved from 1.5 lakh to 3.75 lakh, not measured on the street as Bengaluru's and Mumbai's shares were.
• Rabies deaths are three and one in the national table; the ICMR estimate implies every state's record is low, and the one 2025 death known in Ahmedabad was still under investigation when reported.
• The pet shop register does not exist in public; 'mandatory since 2020' is the department's statement, not a count.
• The directory and Google Maps pulls are a window on Ahmedabad, not the state; Surat, Vadodara and Rajkot have no comparable layer here, and pet spending per household is not here because the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey's unit-level data had not been obtained.

How this report was built

Every figure was read from the document cited, and the state rows are the same rows Bonbeno's national reports computed from the parliamentary annexes.

1. The census figures are from the Rajya Sabha statement of 6 August 2025 and Table 79 of the 19th Livestock Census, with per-1,000 rates from the National Commission on Population's projections; Ahmedabad's count and estimates from IANS of 2 June 2026, Bilkul Online of 26 October 2023, OMMCOM News of 8 August 2025, Vibes of India of 24 January 2026 and DeshGujarat of 2 May 2026; Surat's from the Free Press Journal of 27 October 2023 and DeshGujarat of 4 February 2026.
2. The bite and rabies figures are from Annexure I and II to the Lok Sabha reply of 1 April 2025, Gujarat Samachar of 28 September 2026, Vibes of India and DeshGujarat of 22 September 2025; the national estimate from the WHO India page.
3. The sterilisation, committee, grant and order figures are from LiveLaw's report of the High Court hearing of 4 August 2026, DeshGujarat's report of the hearing of 29 October 2026, ETV Bharat of 27 July 2026, Vibes of India of January 2026, All Gujarat News of 11 February 2026, the Lok Sabha reply of 2 December 2025, the PIB release of 19 August 2025, the Animal Birth Control Rules as gazetted, the Supreme Court's orders of 22 August and 7 November 2025 as published Supreme Court of India and News On AIR of 19 May 2026.
4. The veterinary figures are from the Lok Sabha replies of 2 December 2025, 11 February 2025 and 28 March 2023 Lok Sabha, Unstarred Question 1287 Lok Sabha, Unstarred Question 4449, the Rajya Sabha annexure on data.gov.in and the Veterinary Council of India's college list; the directory and Google Maps figures are counts over Bonbeno's own files and Apify runs.
5. The licence, pet shop and crematorium figures are from DeshGujarat of 12 December 2024, 19 July 2021 and 9 February 2026 DeshGujarat, 'Registration mandatory… DeshGujarat, 'Ahmedabad Gets Gujarat's…, CarryMyPet of 6 October 2025, Gujarat Samachar of 9 July and 8 October 2026 Gujarat Samachar, '9 Months, the Pet Shop Rules and the AWBI circular. The People Also Ask questions were captured on 2 November 2026 through an Apify run of Google's India results for the focus keyword.