Stray dogs in Tamil Nadu, 2026: 4,41,208 counted in 2019, down 32 percent, the highest dog-bite rate in India at 623 per lakh, about 5.25 lakh bites and 28 rabies deaths in 2025, 3,38,135 sterilisations in six months of 2026, the only published pet shop register in the country, four native breeds on the national register, and 10 percent of veterinary posts vacant

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

Tamil Nadu publishes more than most states and contradicts itself more than most. Sixteen rows, from fifteen sources.

Two rows carry the weight. Tamil Nadu has the lowest stray dog count per head of any large state, 5.8 per 1,000 people, and the highest dog-bite rate, 623 per lakh Press Information Bureau, Stray dogs. The rest of this report is about a state that sterilised more dogs in six months than any other has reported in a year, and whose own health department has published two different histories of the same bites.

How many stray dogs Tamil Nadu has: 4.41 lakh in 2019, down a third, and a capital whose count tripled

The census says the state's dogs fell by a third in seven years. Chennai's own survey says the city's tripled in six. Both can be true of different methods.

Tamil Nadu had 4,41,208 stray dogs in the 20th Livestock Census of 2019, 31.9 percent fewer than the 6,47,798 of 2012, and 5.8 dogs for every 1,000 people, the twelfth-largest count among the states and the lowest rate of any state with more than four lakh dogs National Commission on Population. In 2012, 29.7 percent of its stray dogs were counted in urban areas and the rest in rural ones, the second-highest urban share among the large states after Delhi; the 2019 census also recorded 51,150 stray cattle. 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.

Chennai: 1.81 lakh dogs, 27 percent sterilised, and a method that changed

The Greater Chennai Corporation's survey released on 20 September 2024 counted about 1.81 lakh street dogs, up from 58,000 in 2018, with only 27 percent sterilised, from 57 percent in Alandur to 18 percent in Ambattur, which had the most dogs at 23,980; the 2026 sterilisation figures cite the same survey at around 1.81 lakh with 3,544 dogs near schools and colleges. Chennai's 27 percent, three dogs in four unsterilised, is the lowest sterilised share any Indian city has measured, against Bengaluru's 71.81 percent and Mumbai's 62.9 percent, and Bonbeno's Chennai report takes the zone table apart. No other Tamil Nadu city appears in this report with a count of its own, because none has published one that could be read.

Dog bites and rabies: the highest rate in India, 5.25 lakh bites and 28 deaths in 2025, and a department with two histories

Tamil Nadu reports bites at more than twice the national rate. Which figure to use for any year before 2023 depends on which of the department's two series is read.

'While 43 people died due to dog bites last year, 28 people have died so far this year', the Director of Public Health and Disease Prevention, Somasundaram, said on 18 November 2025, with about 5.25 lakh dog bites recorded in 2025 to that date against 4,80,483 in 2024, 4,41,804 in 2023, 3,64,435 in 2022 and 3,19,432 in 2021. Ten months earlier the same department's figures, as DT Next reported them, had been 'approximately 4.79 lakh' bites and 40 deaths in 2024, 4,41,804 and 22 in 2023, 8,83,213 and 28 in 2022, 8,19,779 and 19 in 2021 and 7,14,447 and 20 in 2020, with deaths of 16 in 2017, 31 in 2018 and 19 in 2019. The two versions agree on 2023's bites to the case and disagree on 2021's and 2022's by five lakh each; the November version's 2022 figure is the IDSP's exactly. The IDSP table laid before the Lok Sabha gives Tamil Nadu 3,64,435 bites in 2022, 4,41,796 in 2023, 4,80,427 in 2024 and 48,931 in January 2025, 623.2 per lakh people in 2024 against 265.7 for India, the highest rate of any state, and 108.9 bites in 2024 for every 100 stray dogs the census counted. In July 2026 the Madras High Court was told that the Supreme Court bench had noted 6.25 lakh dog bite cases and 34 deaths in the state in 2025, a full-year figure that fits neither departmental series and is in the dataset's note. Bonbeno's dog bite report prints the IDSP series for every state.

Why the rate is the highest: counting, not only dogs

Tamil Nadu's people are bitten, on the record, at more than twice the national rate, with a stray dog count a third below the national rate per head, which means the state counts bites that other states do not. Its department publishes a series at all, which most do not; its figures for 2023 and 2024 match the IDSP's to within eight and 56 cases, which means its public facilities report into the national system nearly completely; and the IDSP counts presentations at public facilities, so a state where every scratch reaches a primary health centre records more. The rabies deaths tell the other half: 43 in 2024 is the most of any state in the surveillance table and more than twice Maharashtra's 23 by its own count, and the department's view, as DT Next reported it, is that twenty vials of vaccine per facility and immunoglobulin at Rs 40,000 to Rs 50,000 privately are the constraint. The ICMR estimate for India, 5,726 deaths a year against the 54 the surveillance table recorded in 2024, implies every state's count is low.

The Animal Birth Control programme: 3,38,135 sterilisations in six months, 138 new centres and 2.4 lakh microchips announced, and a High Court that saw no change

Tamil Nadu's 2026 drive is the largest any state has reported. The court that watches it was not impressed.

'Animal Birth Control surgeries were performed on 3,38,135 dogs across Tamil Nadu' between 24 January and 26 July 2026, 52,226 of them in Chennai, and 1,68,878 dogs were vaccinated from January to July, with all stray dogs in the state 'planned to be vaccinated by the end of the year'; Chennai's corporation, with sterilisation centres at eleven locations, was adding four at Ambattur, Alandur, Perungudi and Sholinganallur and quarantine centres for aggressive dogs at Manali and Perungudi. The drive follows the plan the Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Services department announced on 28 October 2025: 76 district-level animal welfare officers, half of them veterinary surgeons skilled in ABC surgery, on one-year contracts to be recruited by December; 138 new ABC centres, 38 with shelters for up to 100 dogs each and 100 without, for sterilisation and vaccination; and 2.4 lakh RFID tags procured by the Tamil Nadu Animal Welfare Board to microchip sterilised and vaccinated dogs so that local bodies can track coverage and avoid duplication. In Chennai the state's Additional Chief Secretary directed the corporation in June 2026 to double its daily surgeries from 200 to 350 to 400, with shelters of 250 dogs each at Manali and Perungudi, and in August 2026 the corporation opened its Rs 7.87 crore Nandambakkam centre as its eleventh, with three more under construction. Against the 2019 census count, 3,38,135 surgeries in six months is 77 percent of the state's dogs, a share no survey has measured; against Chennai's 1.81 lakh, 52,226 is 29 percent, on top of the 27 percent the 2024 survey found already sterilised.

What the Centre pays, what the Supreme Court ordered, and what the Madras High Court said

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 Animal Birth Control Rules, 2023, which make the local authority responsible, require release at the same locality under rule 11(19) and bar relocation. 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. Chennai missed the eight-week deadline, removing 40 dogs from the Madras High Court's own premises, and announced Rs 50 a dog a day for feeding and Rs 750 a day for shelters. On 21 July 2026 the First Bench of the Madras High Court, Chief Justice S A Dharmadhikari and Justice G Arul Murugan, hearing its own suo motu case, said that 'no effective action appeared to have been taken to curb the problem despite the Supreme Court's directions', that the report the state had ready 'might contain details of the measures taken' but 'no concrete results were visible on the ground', that children were the worst affected and that even the court's campus faced the problem, and gave the state a week.

Veterinary care: 6,610 registered vets, the fewest empty posts of any large state, 245 mobile units, and a capital with two 24-hour clinics

Tamil Nadu's government veterinary network is the most fully staffed of the large states. Its private emergency layer in Chennai is thin.

Tamil Nadu had 6,610 registered veterinary practitioners on 31 March 2024, up from 5,637 in 2021, and 345 of its 3,465 sanctioned government veterinary doctor posts were vacant in December 2025, 10.0 percent against 25.8 percent for India and the lowest share of any state with more than two thousand posts. Its 3,869 government institutions are 182 veterinary hospitals and polyclinics, 2,766 dispensaries and 921 aid centres, and its 245 operational mobile veterinary units cover 1.0 per lakh livestock, the central norm. With 2,45,00,621 livestock in the 2019 census, the state has 3,707 livestock per registered vet against India's 6,106 and 8.6 vets per lakh people against 6.3, which Bonbeno's Vet Access Index places 18th of 35 states and territories; its seven recognised veterinary colleges, the most of any state after Rajasthan, have 640 approved seats.

The private layer in Chennai

Bonbeno's Chennai vet directory lists 23 clinics and hospitals, only 2 of which publish round-the-clock opening, both of them the veterinary college's, 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 pull returned 48 records and 23 were published, the lowest hit rate of the eight cities. The Google Maps pulls returned 74 pet stores and 12 aquarium or bird shops in the first 100 results for 'pet shop', 17 of whose names advertise live animals, and 47 groomers and 30 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 licence that 73,754 owners took under a fine, the only pet shop register in India, four native breeds, and a free crematorium

Tamil Nadu is the one state where the paperwork exists. The licence has takers, the shop register is published, and the breeds have a policy.

The Greater Chennai Corporation licenses pets for Rs 50 with a compulsory microchip, imposed a Rs 5,000 fine on unregistered or unmicrochipped pets from 24 November 2025, and had issued 73,754 licences by February 2026, with Rs 7.11 lakh collected from defaulters IANS via Prokerala, after about 31 percent of an estimated one lakh owners had licensed before the deadline and 31,000 applications were pending; on 19 December 2025 its council stopped fresh licences for Pit Bulls and Rottweilers and breeding licences for them, with a Rs 1 lakh fine. Chennai licensed twenty times as many dogs as Pune, which charges the same and fines nobody, which is the whole argument for the fine. No state-wide licence exists; other Tamil Nadu corporations license under their own bye-laws, and Bonbeno's guide to dog registration in India walks the Chennai portal beside every other city's. Housing societies work under the Animal Welfare Board of India's guideline, which Bonbeno's guide to pets in apartments in India reads.

Pet shops and breeders: 399 on the register, 373 expired, six breeders, and a deadline set after a death

The Tamil Nadu Animal Welfare Board publishes the only state register of pet shops in India: 399 entries with name, district, the animals permitted, registration and expiry dates and the local authority, of which 373 were past their printed expiry when read on 1 November 2026, and a register of six breeders, three of them native-breed units Tamil Nadu Animal Welfare Board. After a fatal Pit Bull attack the state set a 30 September 2025 deadline for every breeder and shop to register, with legal action from 1 October, and a Board member said Chennai had more than 100 illegal breeding centres; the Board's notice cited the 2018 Pet Shop Rules and the 2017 breeding rules and said only a few establishments had registered; and in February 2026 the state's policy extended registration to boarding centres, grooming facilities and professional trainers. The Rules themselves, with the Board's application form and Tamil guidelines, are on the state's own site; the Animal Welfare Board of India's December 2023 circular recorded that no state had provided its number of registered establishments, which Tamil Nadu's register has since answered. Bonbeno's pet shops report parses the register district by district: Coimbatore has 166 of the 399 entries.

Native breeds: three on the national register, four in the state's policy, and a centre in Tenkasi

Tamil Nadu has more native dog breeds on ICAR's register than any other state: the Rajapalayam and Chippiparai, registered in December 2020 among the first three Indian breeds, and the Kombai, registered on 7 August 2026 as INDIA_DOG_1800_KOMBAI_19006. The Kanni, which the Kennel Club of India registers under two names, is treated by the national register as another name for the Chippiparai and by the state as a breed of its own. The Tamil Nadu State Dog Breeding Policy, 2024 recognises the Rajapalayam, Kombai, Chippiparai and Kanni, lists the Kattai, Ramanathapuram Mandai, Malaipatti and Sengottai for standardisation and registration, allows community dogs with desirable traits to be standardised, and bans the breeding of eleven foreign breeds from the Pug to the Saint Bernard; the Regional Centre for the Conservation of Native Dog Breeds at Pavoorchatram, Tenkasi, opened on 1 September 2025 with 28 dogs of the four breeds, five females and two males each, on a state-funded scheme. The Army's Remount and Veterinary Corps has inducted the Mudhol Hound of Karnataka, the Chippiparai and the Rajapalayam. Bonbeno's report on the register carries the rest, and its pages on the Rajapalayam, Chippiparai, Kombai and Kanni the care.

When a pet dies: Kannammapet, free

The Greater Chennai Corporation's pet crematorium at Kannammapet in T Nagar opened in October 2025, built for Rs 50 lakh under Singara Chennai 2.0, runs 8 am to 5 pm daily, is entirely free and returns the ashes on request; it had cremated 439 pets by 20 January 2026, and the corporation keeps pet burial grounds at Moolakotthalam, Mylapore and Kannammapet. It is one of two free municipal facilities in India, with Mumbai's Malad incinerator; no other Tamil Nadu city has reported one. 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 Tamil Nadu pet owner can do with these numbers

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

1. In Chennai, license and microchip the dog. Rs 50, a free chip at six centres, and a Rs 5,000 fine without one IANS via Prokerala; elsewhere, ask the corporation, because no state rule applies.
2. Vaccinate against rabies on schedule and treat every bite as urgent. The state recorded 43 rabies deaths in 2024 and 28 by mid-November 2025, and the vaccine is in four instalments on days 1, 3, 7 and 28.
3. Know that the 24-hour option in Chennai is the veterinary college. Only 2 of 23 listed clinics publish round-the-clock opening; phone before you drive.
4. Know which order applies to your building. Institutional premises are fenced and cleared to shelters under the 7 November 2025 order; a residential street gets its sterilised, chipped dogs back under rule 11(19).
5. Feed only at a designated spot, and in Chennai claim the Rs 50 a day. The corporation pays feeders at designated spots under the Supreme Court's order.
6. Buy an animal only from a shop on the Board's register, and check the expiry column. 373 of 399 entries were past theirs; a breeder should be one of the six, or show a certificate.
7. If you want a native breed, the Tenkasi centre and the Rajapalayam cooperative kennel are on the breeder register, and the 2024 policy says which breeds the state will not let anyone breed.

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; Chennai's survey is the only measured count in the state, its 2018 baseline was collected by a different method, and the 21st Livestock Census had published no state table by 2 November 2026.
• The health department's two series are not reconcilable before 2023. The January 2025 version gives 8.2 and 8.8 lakh bites for 2021 and 2022; the November 2025 version gives 3.2 and 3.6 lakh; the dataset carries both and computes nothing across them.
• The 2025 total is unsettled. 'About 5.25 lakh' to 18 November is the department's; 6.25 lakh and 34 deaths is what the Madras High Court was told the Supreme Court had noted; the dataset uses the first and prints the second.
• The 3,38,135 sterilisations are an official's figure, not a survey's. No measurement of the sterilised share has been published for any city but Chennai, and the 2026 figure cannot be set against a count that predates it.
• The pet shop register is published and stale. 373 of its 399 entries were past expiry on the day it was read; whether those shops renewed, closed or trade on is not in the document.
• Rabies deaths are the department's count; the IDSP annexure gives 2, 5 and 2 for the same years, and India's estimate of 5,726 a year implies every state's record is low.
• The directory and Google Maps pulls are a window on Chennai, not the state; Coimbatore, Madurai, Salem and Tiruchirappalli 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; Chennai's survey from DT Next of 21 September 2024.
2. The bite and rabies figures are from Annexure I and II to the Lok Sabha reply of 1 April 2025, DT Next of 2 January 2025, ETV Bharat of 18 November 2025 and DT Next's report of the Madras High Court hearing of 21 July 2026; the national estimate from the WHO India page.
3. The sterilisation, plan, grant and order figures are from DT Next of 24 July 2026 and 20 June 2026 DT Next, 'Stepping up stray dog control…, The News Minute of 28 October 2025, the Deccan Chronicle of 23 August 2026, IANS of 10 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, breed and crematorium figures are from Citizen Matters of 11 November 2025, IANS of 24 February 2026, the Deccan Herald of 19 December 2025, the Tamil Nadu Animal Welfare Board's two registers Tamil Nadu Animal Welfare Board, DT Next of 27 August 2025, the Deccan Chronicle of 26 August 2025 and 26 February 2026 Deccan Chronicle, the state's copy of the Pet Shop Rules, the AWBI circular, The Tribune of 23 December 2020, ICAR's note of 7 August 2026, Wikipedia's breed list, DT Next of 28 September 2024, TANUVAS's centre page, The Week of 2 September 2024, DT Next of 20 January 2026 and CarryMyPet of 8 October 2025. The People Also Ask questions were captured on 2 November 2026 through an Apify run of Google's India results for the focus keyword.