Stray dogs in Telangana, 2026: 3,92,932 counted in 2019, 1,21,997 dog bites in 2024 and about 300 a day since, zero rabies deaths in the national table against 34 at Hyderabad's Fever Hospital in 2025, a state that told the Supreme Court it had sterilised 3 lakh of 3.8 lakh dogs, 2,306 vets, and not one mobile veterinary unit

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

Telangana's numbers come from one census, one hospital, two affidavits and a corporation that was divided into three in February 2026. Sixteen rows, from fourteen sources.

Two rows carry the weight. The surveillance table laid before Parliament records no rabies death in Telangana in 2022, 2023 or 2024, and the hospital the state sends its bite victims to recorded 13 in 2023 and 34 in 2025. The rest of this report is about a state whose sterilisation claim is the highest in India and whose death count is zero on one page and 36 on the next.

How many stray dogs Telangana has: 3.93 lakh in 2019, and a capital that has never counted

The state has one census count and no earlier one to compare it with. Its capital has six estimates and no survey.

Telangana had 3,92,932 stray dogs in the 20th Livestock Census of 2019, 10.6 dogs for every 1,000 people, the fifteenth-largest count among the states National Commission on Population. There is no 2012 figure for the state, which was carved out of Andhra Pradesh in 2014; the undivided state's 2012 count was 12,37,988, and Andhra Pradesh's own 2019 count was 4,71,884, so the two successor states together recorded 8,64,816, 30 percent fewer than the undivided count, a fall the census method may or may not explain. The 2019 census also recorded 36,366 stray cattle in Telangana. 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.

Hyderabad: six estimates between 3.7 and 7 lakh, four of them larger than the state's count

Hyderabad has never counted its street dogs. In March 2023 the corporation claimed 4.7 lakh sterilised of 5.7 lakh while data submitted to higher authorities indicated over 8 lakh, and officials refused to comment on a census; in May 2024 it put the population at 3.7 lakh, down from over 8 lakh in 2007; in 2025 a corporation and NGO survey found 20 percent of 3.9 lakh dogs, about 75,000, unsterilised; in November 2025 the state's affidavit to the Supreme Court gave 3.8 lakh with over 3 lakh sterilised; in May 2026 the chief veterinary officer spoke of around 4.70 lakh in the core region with an estimated 50,000 unsterilised; and in October 2026 the plan for seven more centres cited an estimated seven lakh. Bonbeno's Hyderabad report sets the six beside each other; the point for the state is that its capital's estimates alone run from 94 percent to 178 percent of the whole state's census count, which is what an urban count by a corporation and a rural count by enumerators look like side by side. Warangal, Nizamabad, Karimnagar and Khammam appear in this report only through the 'over 40,000' sterilisations the affidavit attributed to smaller towns.

Dog bites and rabies: 1.22 lakh bites in the table, 300 a day by the officials, zero deaths on paper and 34 at one hospital

Telangana's bite count is middling and its death count is the strangest in India: none, in a state whose nodal hospital counts them every year.

The IDSP table laid before the Lok Sabha gives Telangana 92,924 dog bites in 2022, 1,19,014 in 2023, 1,21,997 in 2024 and 10,424 in January 2025, 318.8 per lakh people in 2024 against 265.7 for India, and no suspected rabies death in any of the three years. The state's own officials describe 'close to 300 dog bites per day', about 1.1 lakh people bitten a year, and approximately 3.4 lakh in three years, based on IDSP and National Rabies Control Programme data, with the GHMC area accounting for nearly 100 a day and the true count higher because private facilities do not report; the GHMC's affidavit to the High Court put the state at over 3.3 lakh bites and 36 suspected rabies deaths in 2021 to 2024. Hyderabad's Government Fever Hospital, the nodal centre for dog-bite treatment, treated 27,172 bite victims and recorded 13 rabies deaths in 2023 and 24,705 victims and 34 deaths in 2025, with more than 300 victims a day at government hospitals; by the Times of India's reading of the same hospital's data, deaths rose from 8 in 2022 to 32 in 2025 and city bites from 31,000 in 2022 to 42,000 in 2024. The zero in the national table is therefore not a measurement of rabies in Telangana but of what the state's surveillance unit reports upward, and Bonbeno's dog bite report, which prints the IDSP series for every state, flags Telangana's for exactly that reason.

The vaccine that is not there

The affidavit that counted 36 deaths also recorded that about 80 percent of hospitals lacked rabies immunoglobulin, the drug a deep bite needs at the wound, and a three-year-old in Beerpur died in August 2025 of a bite from 5 July. The ICMR estimate for India is 5,726 rabies deaths a year against the 54 the surveillance table recorded in 2024; a state that reports none to that table while its own hospital counts 34 is where the gap between the two numbers lives.

The Animal Birth Control programme: the highest sterilisation claim in India, a ten-year surgery series, five centres, and a corporation cut in three

Hyderabad claims to have sterilised more of its dogs than any metro. Its own numbers say the surgeries fell by two-thirds after 2018-19.

The state told the Supreme Court in November 2025, in three affidavits under the Animal Birth Control Rules from the animal husbandry department, the GHMC and the rural local bodies, that over 3 lakh of the 3.8 lakh strays under GHMC control were sterilised and over 40,000 more in smaller towns, with roughly three lakh dog bite cases and around 36 rabies deaths in the state in recent years. The corporation's chief veterinary officer put the share at 'over 80 per cent' in May 2026 with an estimated 50,000 unsterilised, and the corporation's own estimate of dogs neither vaccinated nor sterilised was 50,000 to 60,000. The surgery series behind the claim ran from about 90,000 in 2014-15 to a peak of 2,23,000 in 2018-19 and then 50,091, 73,601, 47,874 and 51,887 in the four years to 2023-24, at Rs 320 per operation against Rs 920 in Mumbai and Rs 750 in Delhi The Siasat Daily. Five animal care centres, at Fathullaguda, Chudi Bazaar, Amberpet, Kukatpally and Serilingampally, hold about 3,000 dogs; seven more are planned, one per zone, and Katedan was under construction in October 2026 at 70 to 80 surgeries a day Hyderabad Mail, 'Hyderabad to get two new…. Since 11 February 2026 the programme belongs to three corporations, the residual GHMC of 150 wards, Cyberabad of 76 and Malkajgiri of 74, under Government Order 55. Hyderabad's share, if the affidavit is right, would exceed Bengaluru's measured 71.81 percent; the difference is that Bengaluru's figure was counted on the street and Hyderabad's derived from surgery records against an estimate that has moved from 3.7 to 7 lakh.

What the Centre pays, what the Supreme Court ordered, and what the corporation did on day one

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. On the first day after the November order the GHMC caught 277 dogs from government hospitals and relocated them to its animal care centres, a departure from its earlier practice, in which billing software prevented a dog's release beyond a 150-metre radius of where it was caught.

Veterinary care: 2,306 registered vets for 3.26 crore livestock, no mobile unit at all, and 47 private clinics in Hyderabad with 14 open all night

Telangana has the second-worst ratio of livestock to vets in India and is the one large state that returned its mobile-unit money.

Telangana had 2,306 registered veterinary practitioners on 31 March 2024, up from 1,803 in 2021, and 190 of its 1,222 sanctioned government veterinary doctor posts were vacant in December 2025, 15.5 percent against 25.8 percent for India. Its 2,117 government institutions are 107 veterinary hospitals and polyclinics, 909 dispensaries and 1,101 aid centres, and it reported no operational mobile veterinary units on 31 January 2025, having returned the central funds, against a norm of one per lakh livestock and a national average of 0.7. With 3,26,40,639 livestock in the 2019 census, the state has 14,155 livestock per registered vet, more than twice India's 6,106 and worse than every state but Jharkhand, and 6.0 vets per lakh people against 6.3, which Bonbeno's Vet Access Index places 34th of 35 states and territories; its three recognised veterinary colleges have 280 approved seats. The vacancy rate is better than the national average and the ratio is near the worst, because the sanctioned strength itself is small for the herd.

The private layer in Hyderabad

Bonbeno's Hyderabad vet directory lists 47 clinics and hospitals, 14 of which publish round-the-clock opening, the second-longest list and the most 24-hour clinics 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 pulls returned 73 pet stores and 18 aquarium or bird shops in the first 100 results for 'pet shop', 28 of whose names advertise live animals, the most of any city but Ahmedabad, and 64 groomers and 75 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 free licence one owner in five has taken, 86 registered pet shops, no native breed on the register, and one crematorium

Telangana's capital made its pet licence free and most owners still have not taken it. Its pet shops have been under a High Court petition since 2023.

The GHMC's pet licence has been free on the MyGHMC app since August 2024, after four years at Rs 50, and by June 2025 about 14,000 pets were licensed of an estimated 70,000 to 80,000 dogs and cats, 17.5 to 20 percent Metro India, 'Few pets registered…; in December 2021, when the corporation announced fines of Rs 1,000 to Rs 50,000, 465 of around 50,000 pet dogs were registered. The one city in this series that licensed most of its pets, Chennai in Tamil Nadu, did it with a Rs 5,000 fine, not a free licence. No state rule exists; Bonbeno's guide to dog registration in India walks the Hyderabad app beside every other city's portal, 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: 86 and 9 registered, and a High Court that asked why

In June 2021 the state's Principal Secretary said none of the 70 pet shops in Hyderabad held the mandatory registration from the Telangana State Animal Welfare Board and gave them four weeks; by October 2023 an RTI reply showed 86 pet shops and 9 dog breeders registered in the whole state, which Humane Society International India put before the Telangana High Court in a public interest litigation on animals dying in unlicensed shops, on which the Chief Justice issued notice. The Rules require a Board certificate for every shop that sells an animal and every breeder, and the Animal Welfare Board of India's circular of December 2023 recorded that no state had provided its number of registered establishments; Telangana's 86 is the RTI's, not the Board's publication. Bonbeno's pet shops report carries the Rules clause by clause and the one state register that exists, Tamil Nadu's.

Native breeds: none named for Telangana on the register

No dog breed named for Telangana is on ICAR's register of six Indian breeds or on the standard list of twenty; the Pandikona, a hound of the Deccan that the CRPF's school trains, is listed without a stated region, 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, three of them Tamil Nadu's and one Karnataka's Mudhol Hound from across the border at Bagalkot.

When a pet dies: Fathullaguda, at the operator's price

Hyderabad's pet crematorium at the Fathullaguda animal care centre near Nagole was built by the GHMC for about Rs 1 crore, with LPG machinery from People for Animals, runs four dogs per two-hour cycle and has been operated by People for Animals under a memorandum since 6 December 2022, collecting user charges the corporation has never published; a second, on 500 square yards at Gopanpally, was approved in October 2023 as a corporate social responsibility project of the Raga Foundation and its opening has not been reported. Mumbai's municipal facility is free and Bengaluru's charges Rs 800; Hyderabad's price is whatever the operator quotes on the day. 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 Telangana pet owner can do with these numbers

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

1. Register the pet on the MyGHMC app. It is free, and one owner in five has done it; outside Hyderabad, ask the municipality, because no state rule applies.
2. Vaccinate against rabies on schedule and treat every bite as urgent. The Fever Hospital recorded 34 rabies deaths in 2025, and four hospitals in five lack immunoglobulin; ask before you are treated.
3. Pick the 24-hour clinic before you need it. Fourteen of Hyderabad's 47 listed clinics publish round-the-clock opening in Bonbeno's directory; outside the city there is no mobile unit to call.
4. Know which order applies to your building. Institutional premises are fenced and cleared to the animal care centres under the 7 November 2025 order; a residential lane gets its sterilised dogs back under rule 11(19).
5. Know which corporation you are in since February 2026, GHMC, Cyberabad or Malkajgiri, because the ABC centres and the veterinary officers are now theirs.
6. Buy an animal only from one of the 86 registered shops or 9 registered breeders, and ask to see the Board certificate; the pet shops report lists what to ask.
7. Know the crematorium and phone for the price. Fathullaguda's charge is the operator's and has never been printed.

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 state has one census count and no trend, because it did not exist as a state in 2012; the 2019 figure is a household-enumerator estimate and the 21st Livestock Census had published no state table by 2 November 2026.
• Hyderabad's population is six estimates and no survey; the sterilised share derived from them cannot be checked against a count, and the affidavit's 3.8 lakh and the October 2026 seven lakh cannot both be right.
• The rabies death count depends on who is asked. The IDSP table says zero; the Fever Hospital says 34 in 2025 by one report and 32 by another; the affidavit says 36 in four years; the dataset carries all of them and adopts none.
• The bite series are not comparable. The IDSP counts presentations at reporting public facilities; the officials' 300 a day is a rate; the affidavit's 3.3 lakh is a four-year sum; the Fever Hospital's figures are one institution's.
• The sterilisation series has two versions for 2022-23 and a missing year, and no figure after 2023-24 has been published as a number rather than a share.
• The pet shop count is a 2023 RTI reply, not a published register, and the High Court petition's outcome has not been read.
• The directory and Google Maps pulls are a window on Hyderabad, not the state; Warangal, Nizamabad, Karimnagar and Khammam 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; Hyderabad's estimates from the Deccan Chronicle of 1 March 2023, 31 August 2025 and 5 November 2025 Deccan Chronicle Deccan Chronicle, The Siasat Daily of 21 May 2024, The Hans India of 4 May 2026 and Hyderabad Mail of 16 and 22 October 2026 Hyderabad Mail, 'Hyderabad to get two new….
2. The bite and rabies figures are from Annexure I and II to the Lok Sabha reply of 1 April 2025, Telangana Today of 26 August 2025, Indtoday of 9 December 2025 and The News Minute of 26 November 2025; the national estimate from the WHO India page.
3. The sterilisation, grant and order figures are from the Deccan Chronicle and Siasat reports above, the Deccan Chronicle and The Siasat Daily of 9 November 2025 The Siasat Daily, the Deccan Chronicle 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 Telangana Today of 21 December 2020, 14 September 2022 and 5 June 2021 Telangana Today, 'Pet Dog License is… Telangana Today, 'Hyderabad, the Deccan Chronicle of 21 December 2021 and 17 August 2024 Deccan Chronicle, Metro India of 10 June 2025, LiveLaw and the Deccan Chronicle of 4 October 2023 Deccan Chronicle, the Pet Shop Rules, the AWBI circular, The News Minute of 5 December 2022 and Telangana Today of 8 October 2023. The People Also Ask questions were captured on 2 November 2026 through Apify runs of Google's India results for 'stray dogs in hyderabad' and 'dog bite cases in telangana', because the focus keyword itself returned no People Also Ask box.