Stray dogs in Manipur, 2026: zero in the 2019 census and 23 in 2012, 9,257 dog bites in 2024 in the national table, 749 in three months of a Churachandpur outbreak, six rabies deaths in the table against seven in one year by the state's count, 582 vets with no college of their own, 33 mobile units that had served no farmer, and the Haofa that no register lists

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

Manipur is the state with almost no stray dogs on paper and a rabies death toll in its hospitals. Fifteen rows, from fourteen sources.

Two rows carry the weight. The 20th Livestock Census counted no stray dogs in Manipur, and the national surveillance table counted 9,257 dog bites in the state in 2024. The rest of this report is about a state whose dogs are mostly owned, whose bites are mostly by those dogs and neighbours' puppies, and whose rabies deaths are counted three different ways.

How many stray dogs Manipur has: 23 in 2012, none in 2019, and a census method that cannot see them

The census figure is real, but it records what one informant in each village said, not a count of dogs.

Manipur had 23 stray dogs in the 19th Livestock Census of 2012, all rural, and 42 stray cattle; the 20th Livestock Census of 2019 counted none, beside 2 stray cattle. That is a fall of 100 percent in the same years India's count fell from 1,71,38,349 to 1,53,09,355, and it is matched in the northeast only by Mizoram, which counted no stray dogs in 2012 and 69 in 2019; Nagaland counted 342, Arunachal Pradesh 11,383 and Meghalaya 10,653 Department of Animal Husbandry. Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Maharashtra and Karnataka count theirs in lakhs. The method explains part of the gap: the census report says stray cattle and dog figures 'were collected from a single source in the village/ward such as Sarpanch/ other panchayat member or patwari or teacher or other knowledgeable person'. A village informant in a place where nearly every dog has an owner will answer zero. A veterinarian writing in The Sangai Express in 2025 put it the same way, 'Manipur has a relatively low stray dog population', and the only count of owned dogs in print is old: 'As per the Census of 2002, the number of domesticated dogs was put at 1,30,000', as E-Pao reported a minister's figures in 2006. No survey of Imphal's dogs by the Imphal Municipal Corporation or the state could be found. Bonbeno's street dog report carries every state's census row.

Dog bites and rabies: 9,257 bites in 2024, and three different death counts

A state with no stray dogs on paper records more bites per head than India, and the death counts do not agree.

The IDSP table laid before the Lok Sabha gives Manipur 4,450 dog bites in 2022, 2,964 in 2023, 9,257 in 2024 and 798 in January 2025, and 1, 3, 2 and 0 suspected rabies deaths. On the National Commission on Population's projection of 32.53 lakh people in 2024, the 2024 figure is 284.6 bites per lakh, above India's 265.7, and it more than doubled from 2022, a rise of 108.0 percent against India's 69.7. The 2023 figure fell a third below 2022; the table gives no reason, and 2023 is the year violence broke out in the state, which no source read for this report connects to the bite count. Against the big states the numbers are small: Maharashtra recorded 4,85,345 bites in 2024, Tamil Nadu 4,80,427 and Karnataka 3,61,494, and Maharashtra 14 rabies deaths. Because the census counts no strays, the national report's ratio of bites to street dogs cannot be computed for Manipur at all; Bonbeno's dog bite report prints it for every other state.

Rabies deaths: six in the table, seven in a year by the state, eight in two years at RIMS

In April 2025 the Manipur government reported 'a total of seven Rabies (hydrophobia) death cases during the past year', against two in the IDSP table for 2024 and six for 2022 to 2024 together. In October 2025 NE Now reported, from hospital reports, that 'a total of 8 persons including women and children die of rabies (hydrophobia) in Manipur during the past two years', after Ngangom Bigsun, 18, of Kanto Makha Leikai in Imphal West died at RIMS two months after a neighbour's unvaccinated puppy bit him. The three counts cover different periods and are printed side by side, not reconciled. Earlier deaths are on record too: a five-year-old boy in Wangoo Ahallup, Bishnupur district, died in December 2022 after puppies bit him, in a locality where 'there were around 19 cases of dog bites', and in March 2006 '18 persons have reportedly succumbed to the disease', 11 of them in Thoubal district. The state's Veterinary and Animal Husbandry Department said it gave 1,19,876 anti-rabies vaccine doses to animals from 1 April 2024 to 25 April 2025 and vaccinated 37,182 animals in April 2025 alone. The Union government's reply of April 2025 lists Manipur among the states 'yet to launch' a State Action Plan for Rabies Elimination.

Churachandpur, 2025: 749 bitten and a vaccine shortage

In Churachandpur district 'at least 749 people have suffered dog bites' between January and early April 2025, and rabies killed three, among them a girl in Mongken village, Henglep. District Magistrate Dharun Kumar declared New Zoveng village a containment zone on 4 April 2025, banned the movement, sale and transport of dogs in and out of it, and ordered every pet and stray dog identified and vaccinated; a veterinary quick response team covered 30 households and vaccinated every pet dog, and the District Veterinary Officer, Dr Veithienneng, said 'The shortage of vaccine supply is currently our biggest challenge'. The district across the border in Mizoram, Saitual, banned dog imports 'from other states and countries' for two months from 7 April 2025. The district's 749 bites in about three months are close to the 798 the IDSP table records for the whole state in January 2025; the two are different instruments and are not added.

The dog meat trade: carcasses from Cachar, a Rs 6,000 dog, and no Manipur law against it

In Manipur the threat to dogs is often people, and the state has not issued the kind of order its neighbours have.

In June 2021 Jiribam district police stopped three men on National Highway 37 at Chandrapur with '10 dog carcasses' from 'Ramgaizang village in Cachar, Assam' bound for 'Tamenglong Bazar', where local reports put dog meat at 'Rs 600' a kg. In August 2020 a 47-year-old man in Imphal East dragged a dog about 2 km behind a motorcycle and was found with nine others preparing to cook it; the dog had been sold for Rs 6,000, and the FIR, filed by the Yening Animal Foundation, invoked sections 428 and 429 of the Indian Penal Code and section 11 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960. In October 2021 the Manipur Dog Lovers' Club and Yening Animal Foundation offered Rs 60,000 for information on two men who killed a pet dog in Thoubal district and took the carcass. No Manipur government order banning the slaughter of dogs or the sale of dog meat could be found. Meghalaya prohibited 'slaughtering of dogs for meat' by an order of 9 September 2021, and Nagaland's ban of 4 July 2020 was set aside by the Gauhati High Court's Kohima Bench in 2023 because 'the Chief Secretary was not the appropriate authority to issue the impugned order' and no law had been 'passed by the legislation in relation to trade and consumption of dog meat'. Bonbeno's Assam report follows the same trade from the other end.

The Animal Birth Control programme and the courts: no count, a 2018 PIL, and a 2026 monitoring order

Manipur has published no sterilisation figures, and its High Court has once told the state it was failing animals.

No Animal Birth Control count, contract or centre for Manipur or the Imphal Municipal Corporation could be found published, and the state is not named in any national ABC table read for this report. The Union government's position is that local bodies run the programme under the Animal Birth Control Rules, 2023, which provide 'for sterilization and vaccination of stray dogs'. What Manipur does publish is vaccination: the department's camps, and club drives such as one in Khurai Lamlong in April 2025 where 'around 70 dogs were vaccinated against rabies' with the Veterinary Office, Imphal East. For a state where most dogs are owned, mass vaccination of pets reaches more of them than a street sterilisation drive would.

What the High Court of Manipur said in 2018, and what the Supreme Court ordered in 2026

On 25 July 2018 a Division Bench of the High Court of Manipur, Chief Justice Ramalingam Sudhakar and Justice K.H. Nobin Singh, heard a PIL on dogs seized from cruel transport in a car: People for Animals, Manipur could no longer keep them, the Director of Veterinary and Animal Husbandry Services said the department had no shelter scheme, and the Court ordered the State to release funds for their upkeep and 'to implement the Act and rules as directed by the Apex Court', calling the State's 'insensibility to the issue relating to the welfare of the animals' unfortunate. Rescued dogs have since been kept at a shelter at Porompat run by the Manipur State Animal Welfare Board, including 30 seized at Senapati in January 2021 on a magistrate's directive. On 19 May 2026 the Supreme Court directed every High Court to register a suo motu petition titled 'In Re Compliance With The Directions Issued By Supreme Court', required Chief Secretaries to file compliance affidavits before them by 7 August 2026, and ordered 'at least one fully functional Animal Birth Control centre in every district'; it kept its rule that dogs picked up from public places 'must not be released back after vaccination or sterilisation' and permitted euthanasia of rabid or dangerous dogs. No report of the High Court of Manipur's compliance case or of Manipur's affidavit could be found by 11 November 2026, and no ABC centre in any Manipur district was found published.

Veterinary care: 582 vets, 946 livestock each, and no college in the state

Manipur has many vets for a small herd, a vacancy rate far above India's, and no college to train its own.

Manipur had 582 registered veterinary practitioners on 31 March 2024, and 48 of its 111 sanctioned government veterinary doctor posts were vacant, 43.2 percent against 25.8 percent for India. With 5,50,719 livestock in the 2019 census, that is 946 livestock per registered vet against India's 6,106, Kerala's 539, Maharashtra's 2,939 and Karnataka's 5,709, and 17.9 vets per lakh people against India's 6.3. Manipur's 33 sanctioned mobile veterinary units were all operational on 31 January 2025, on Rs 5.28 crore released, and the same reply's annexure lists '0' farmers provided veterinary services at the doorstep in Manipur; it is printed here as the annexure prints it. The state has no veterinary college of its own: the Central Agricultural University, Imphal runs its two, at Aizawl in Mizoram with 100 seats and at Jalukie in Nagaland with 37. Bonbeno's Vet Access Index ranks every state on the same arithmetic. Bonbeno's vet directories cover eight cities, Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, Kolkata and Ahmedabad, none of them in the northeast.

Pets and the rules: no published licence, no shop count, and the Haofa

Manipur publishes almost nothing on pet rules; its one documented dog is a native hound.

No Imphal Municipal Corporation dog licence, fee or count could be found published, and no Manipur register of pet shops or breeders; Bonbeno's guide to dog registration in India covers the portals that exist, and its pet shops report the Rules every shop must follow. A Rs 5,000 fine or six months in jail for the owner of a dog that bites exists next door, in Mizoram's Saitual district order of April 2025, not in Manipur.

The Haofa: Manipur's own dog, on no register

A Central Agricultural University study of 100 adult Haofa dogs in Ukhrul and Kamjong districts, published in the Indian Journal of Animal Sciences in April 2024, found them 'morphologically different from the other exotic breeds, crossbreeds or local dogs found in the state' and concluded that the Haofa 'deserves to be recognized as a distinct breed of dog', medium-sized, usually black, 22 to 31 kg, with litters of 3 to 8; the authors wrote to enable registration 'before its population declines to a critical level'. The Tangkhul community kept this indigenous hound for hunting and guarding, and it remains unregistered. At the fourth Haofa Festival at Phungcham in December 2025, 'Haofa pups were put up for sale at Rs 7000 per pup', and the Phungcham Haofa Lovers Association's application for a Geographical Indication tag stalled when 'the eruption of violence in 2023 put the process on hold'. The Haofa is not among the six breeds on ICAR's register or the Kennel Club of India's recognised Indian breeds in Bonbeno's report on the register, and the dog most of India shares a road with is the Indian pariah dog. For end of life Bonbeno's guide to when your pet dies in India covers burial and cremation; no Manipur pet crematorium was found.

What a Manipur pet owner can do with these numbers

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

1. Vaccinate your dog against rabies every year, and puppies too. The Imphal West death of October 2025 followed a bite by a neighbour's unvaccinated puppy.
2. Use the department's free camps. The veterinary department ran 699 anti-rabies camps in April 2025 alone.
3. After any bite, go for the vaccine the same day and tell your family. Rabies patients at RIMS 'died within a week' of admission.
4. Follow a containment order if one is declared. Churachandpur's banned moving, selling and transporting dogs in New Zoveng.
5. Report anyone killing a dog or selling it for meat to the police. The Imphal case of 2020 was charged under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act.
6. If you keep a Haofa, breed it within the community's associations. The breed has no register yet.

What this data does not measure

Manipur's record is thin, and the gaps are part of the finding.

• The census zero is an informant's answer, not a count. No survey of street or owned dogs in Imphal or the state exists; the 1,30,000 owned dogs are a 2002 figure reported in 2006. The 21st Livestock Census had published no state table by 11 November 2026.
• The four death counts are different instruments over different periods: the IDSP's calendar years, the state's year to April 2025, RIMS's two years to October 2025 and one district's three months. The dataset computes nothing across them.
• No state bite series exists outside the IDSP table. A figure of 22,279 bites over 2018 to 2023 appears in search results but its source could not be opened, and is not used.
• No sterilisation count, ABC centre, dog licence, pet shop count or crematorium was found for Manipur or Imphal.
• No report of the High Court of Manipur's 2026 compliance case or Manipur's affidavit could be read.
• The mobile unit annexure's zero for farmers served is printed as the annexure prints it; it may be a reporting gap rather than idle vans, and no explanation was published.
• The effect of the violence since 2023 on dogs, pets and veterinary services is not measured by any source read. Veterinary institution counts were unreadable (data.gov.in did not respond).

How this report was built

Every figure was read from the document cited, and the national rows are read from the parliamentary annexes themselves.

1. The census figures are from the Rajya Sabha statement of 6 August 2025 and Table 79 and the method note of the 19th Livestock Census, with population from the National Commission on Population's projections and the 2002 owned-dog figure from E-Pao.
2. The bite and death figures are from Annexures I to III of the Lok Sabha reply of 1 April 2025 as published by PIB, NE Now NE Now (Bit Irom), Deccan Chronicle, India Today NE India Today NE, 'Manipur India Today NE, 'Mizoram's Saitual bans dog…, The Sangai Express The Sangai Express, Dr Thiyam Ramesh Singh and the Imphal Times.
3. The trade and court figures are from Northeast Today, The Sentinel The Sentinel, 'Animal rights groups…, LiveLaw LiveLaw, 'Supreme Court Directs All High…, SCC Online, The Sangai Express and News On AIR.
4. The veterinary figures are from the Lok Sabha replies Lok Sabha, Unstarred Question 1287 Lok Sabha, Unstarred Question 4449 and the VCI list; the Haofa figures from the Indian Journal of Animal Sciences and The Sangai Express.
5. The People Also Ask questions were captured on 11 November 2026 through an Apify run of Google's India mobile results for 'dog bite cases in manipur' and 'stray dogs in imphal'; the focus keyword returned no box. Deccan Herald, Business Standard and data.gov.in refused the fetch and were not used.