Stray dogs in Uttar Pradesh, 2026: 20,59,261 counted in 2019, the most of any state after a count that halved, 1,64,009 dog bites in 2024 at the lowest rate in India, 2,45,090 sterilisations in two years at 17 centres, a Lucknow model at 84 percent coverage, an order that confines a biting dog for ten days and a repeat biter for life, and 7,421 vets for 6.8 crore livestock

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

Uttar Pradesh is first on dogs, first on cattle and last on recorded bites. Sixteen rows, from twelve sources.

Two rows carry the weight. Uttar Pradesh has 20,59,261 stray dogs, the most of any state, and records 69 dog bites per lakh people, the fewest of any state. The rest of this report is about a state whose dogs are counted by enumerators and whose bites are mostly not counted at all.

How many stray dogs Uttar Pradesh has: 20.59 lakh in 2019 after a count that halved, 11.84 lakh stray cattle, and a capital whose dogs grew as its programme ran

The census says the state lost half its stray dogs in seven years and kept first place. Lucknow's own count went the other way.

Uttar Pradesh had 20,59,261 stray dogs in the 20th Livestock Census of 2019, 50.7 percent fewer than the 41,79,245 of 2012 and still the largest count of any state, ahead of Odisha's 17,34,399 and Maharashtra's 12,76,399, at 9.2 dogs for every 1,000 people against the national 11.5 National Commission on Population. In 2012 only 7.1 percent of its stray dogs were counted in urban areas, the lowest urban share of any large state, which is what a state of 2.2 crore people in villages looks like in a household census. The same census counted 11,84,494 stray cattle in 2019, nine lakh more than Rajasthan's 12,72,277 would suggest it should lead by and more than a fifth of India's 50,21,587; the Supreme Court's order of 7 November 2025 on clearing cattle from highways is, in practice, an order about this state. The census is a household-enumerator estimate by village and ward, and Bonbeno's street dog report explains why a halving of this size is as likely to be a change in how enumerators asked as in how many dogs there were; the 21st Livestock Census had published no state stray dog table by 2 November 2026.

Lucknow: 75,000 to 1.2 lakh, and 84.3 percent sterilised

Lucknow's stray population rose from 75,000 to nearly 1.2 lakh as the city's limits expanded, while its programme, begun in 2019, sterilised and vaccinated over 84.3 percent of the city's dogs, above the World Health Organization's 70 percent benchmark for rabies control, with a target of 90 percent by the end of 2025 and births down from eight per 100 dogs in 2019 to under four in 2025. The corporation catches and operates on 60 to 65 dogs a day at a cost that rose from Rs 950 to Rs 1,250 a dog, and the Urban Development Department has said it will replicate the model statewide. The 84.3 percent is the corporation's own figure, not a street survey, and it leaves about 19,000 of the 1.2 lakh unsterilised by the corporation's own arithmetic; Bengaluru's 71.81 percent, the highest any Indian city has measured by sight-resight, and Chennai's 27 percent are in Bonbeno's street dog report. Noida, Ghaziabad, Kanpur, Agra and Varanasi appear in this report only through the state's figures and the Supreme Court's orders.

Dog bites and rabies: 1.64 lakh bites in 2024, the lowest rate in India and the only fall, and six deaths

Uttar Pradesh's bite table went down in 2024 when every other large state's went up. The explanation is in who reports, and the state does not say.

The IDSP table laid before the Lok Sabha gives Uttar Pradesh 1,91,361 dog bites in 2022, 2,29,921 in 2023, 1,64,009 in 2024 and 20,478 in January 2025, with 0, 3 and 6 suspected rabies deaths, so that in the state with the most stray dogs in India 68.9 people per lakh were recorded as bitten in 2024 against 265.7 for India, the lowest rate of any state, and was the only state with more than a lakh cases whose count fell. The IDSP counts presentations at reporting public facilities; a rate a quarter of the national one, in a state whose census dog density is close to the national figure, measures reporting more than biting, and the fall in 2024 is more likely a reporting change than fewer dogs, though the state has published nothing that would decide it. Its six rabies deaths in 2024, up from none in 2022, were joint second with Madhya Pradesh behind Maharashtra's 14, against an ICMR estimate for India of 5,726 a year. Bonbeno's dog bite report prints the IDSP series for every state so that Uttar Pradesh's 69 per lakh can be set beside Tamil Nadu's 623, Maharashtra's 381 and West Bengal's 77.

The Animal Birth Control programme: 2,45,090 sterilisations in two years at 17 centres, a Lucknow model, an order that confines biting dogs, and a central grant of zero

Uttar Pradesh publishes a statewide sterilisation figure, which most states do not, and wrote its own rule for the dog that bites.

'1,25,893 sterilisations in 2023-24' and '1,19,197 in 2024-25', the Urban Development Department said on 1 August 2025, with a cumulative '2,84,641 stray dogs' sterilised and vaccinated against rabies, '17 permanent ABC centres operational across the state' and two more approved for Lucknow and Ghaziabad, and 5,333 pet dog licences issued between 1 April and 15 July; seventeen sterilisation centres for a state of 20 lakh census dogs is one for every 1.2 lakh of them; the two new centres sit inside a Rs 34 crore state allocation for animal welfare. Against the 2019 census, 1,19,197 surgeries a year is 5.8 percent of the state's dogs, and against the 17 corporations' own cities it is a different and unpublished share; Pune alone sterilises 57,852 a year and Mumbai plans 45,000. The Centre's part is the same as everywhere: the Animal Welfare Board of India released no ABC grant to any state in 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24 or 2024-25, and 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 order of 10 September 2025: ten days for a bite, life for a second

Under guidelines the Principal Secretary, Amrit Abhijat, sent to municipal authorities on 10 September 2025, 'any dog that bites a person will be captured and taken to an Animal Birth Control (ABC) facility for a 10-day monitoring period', during which it is sterilised if it has not been, microchipped and observed; if the same dog attacks again without provocation 'it will face lifelong confinement at the centre'; 'a panel of three experts will determine whether each attack was justified or unprovoked', a veterinary professional, an experienced animal handler and a municipal official, and a dog that defends itself after being struck or pelted with stones is not counted as unprovoked; the only way out of lifelong confinement is adoption, 'requiring the new owner to provide a written guarantee' that the dog never returns to the street. No other state has written a rule of this shape, and it sits beside the central Rules, which say nothing about a dog that bites except that a rabid or aggressive one is not released.

What the Supreme Court ordered, and why Noida and Ghaziabad answer to the Delhi order

The Supreme Court's order of 11 August 2025 was addressed to Delhi-NCR, which takes in Noida and Ghaziabad: catch and sterilise, relocate permanently to shelters with staff and CCTV within eight weeks, a helpline within a week, bite complaints acted on within four hours and daily records. Its order of 22 August kept the shelter directions but restored release after sterilisation for healthy dogs, 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 to clear stray cattle from highways; and on 19 May 2026 it upheld those directions. The state's September order came a month after the August orders and is its reading of them.

Veterinary care: 7,421 registered vets for 6.8 crore livestock, 520 mobile units, and 3.1 vets per lakh people

Uttar Pradesh has the most livestock, the most mobile units and among the fewest vets per head of any state.

Uttar Pradesh had 7,421 registered veterinary practitioners on 31 March 2024, up from 6,767 in 2021, and 560 of its 2,621 sanctioned government veterinary doctor posts were vacant in December 2025, 21.4 percent against 25.8 percent for India. Its 5,050 government institutions are 2,208 veterinary hospitals and polyclinics, the most of any state, 267 dispensaries and 2,575 aid centres, and its 520 operational mobile veterinary units, the most of any state, cover 0.8 per lakh livestock against the central norm of one. With 6,80,12,945 livestock in the 2019 census, the largest herd in India, the state has 9,165 livestock per registered vet against India's 6,106, 13,468 per government institution against 7,906, and 3.1 vets per lakh people against 6.3, which Bonbeno's Vet Access Index places 28th of 35 states and territories; its five recognised veterinary colleges have 390 approved seats, against Tamil Nadu's seven colleges and 640 and Rajasthan's eleven and 1,000. Bonbeno's vet directories cover eight cities, none of them in Uttar Pradesh, so this report has no private clinic layer for Lucknow, Kanpur or Noida; what a consultation, a vaccination or a surgery costs anywhere in India is in Bonbeno's guide to what a vet visit costs in India.

Pets and the rules: 5,333 licences in a quarter, no pet shop register, the Rampur Greyhound in uniform, and a crematorium in Ghaziabad

Uttar Pradesh is the one state that has published a statewide pet licence count. It is small.

Uttar Pradesh's municipal corporations issued 5,333 pet dog licences between 1 April and 15 July 2025, by the Urban Development Department's statement, the only statewide licence figure any state in this series has published; across a state of 24 crore people it is fewer than Chennai, in Tamil Nadu, issued in one quarter under a Rs 5,000 fine. Each corporation licenses under its own bye-laws, and Bonbeno's guide to dog registration in India covers the portals that exist; housing societies work under the Animal Welfare Board of India's guideline, which Bonbeno's guide to pets in apartments in India reads. The Rules require a State Board certificate for every shop that sells an animal and every breeder; the Board's circular of December 2023 recorded that no state had provided its number of registered establishments, and Uttar Pradesh has published none. Bonbeno's pet shops report carries the Rules clause by clause and the one state register that exists, Tamil Nadu's.

The Rampur Greyhound: Uttar Pradesh's breed, unregistered and in uniform

The Rampur Greyhound of Rampur district is on the standard list of twenty Indian breeds and is not registered with ICAR's National Bureau of Animal Genetic Resources or recognised by the Kennel Club of India; the Bureau named it for characterisation when it registered the first three breeds in 2020, and it has been in trials ever since: with the Border Security Force in 2022, at CRPF and BSF centres in 2023, with the Army's Remount and Veterinary Corps in 2024, and as a focus breed, with the Mudhol Hound, of the BSF's National Training Centre for dogs at Tekanpur, which had 150 Indian-breed dogs at the borders by October 2025, 'special focus' on 'the Rampur Hound from Uttar Pradesh' being the Prime Minister's phrase in that month's Mann Ki Baat. Bonbeno's report on the register and its Rampur Greyhound page carry the rest; the dog most of the state shares a street with is the Indian pariah dog.

When a pet dies: Ghaziabad's crematorium of 2022

Ghaziabad's municipal corporation opened the state's first dog crematorium near Nandi Park by the Hindon in February 2022, at an estimated Rs 500 for pet owners with community dogs free; no later report of its operation, fee or hours could be read, and no other Uttar Pradesh city has reported one. Delhi's municipal crematorium at Dwarka, across the border, charges Rs 2,000 for a dog under 30 kg. Bonbeno's cremation report has every facility's fee and hours, and its guide to when your pet dies in India the steps.

What an Uttar Pradesh pet owner can do with these numbers

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

1. License the dog with your corporation. 5,333 owners did between April and July 2025; the fee and the rule are your corporation's own.
2. Vaccinate against rabies on schedule and treat every bite as urgent. The state recorded six rabies deaths in 2024, the most after Maharashtra; the low bite count is a reporting figure, not a safety one.
3. Keep your dog from biting, because the order has teeth. An unprovoked bite means ten days at an ABC centre; a second means life, and adoption out needs a written guarantee.
4. Know which order applies to your building. Institutional premises are fenced and cleared to shelters under the 7 November 2025 order; a residential lane gets its sterilised dogs back under rule 11(19); in Noida and Ghaziabad the Delhi-NCR shelter and helpline directions apply too.
5. Ask your corporation for sterilisation, not removal. Seventeen corporations run 17 centres and Lucknow's reports 84 percent coverage; a lane of unnotched adult dogs is the fact to report.
6. Buy an animal only from a shop or breeder that can show its State Board certificate. No register exists; the pet shops report lists what to ask.
7. In Ghaziabad, phone before you go. The 2022 crematorium's current status is unreported; elsewhere the option is burial or a private service.

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 halving of the census count is unexplained; a household-enumerator estimate that falls by 21 lakh in seven years while the state's people grow is a change in the asking as much as in the dogs, and the 21st Livestock Census had published no state table by 2 November 2026.
• The bite series is the lowest in India because it is the least reported, and the 2024 fall is more likely a reporting change than fewer dogs; no state health department series was read to check it against.
• The sterilisation figures are the department's statement, by financial year, for the 17 corporations only; the rural three-quarters of the state's dogs are outside them, and the cumulative figure does not sum.
• Lucknow's 84.3 percent is the corporation's own figure, not a sight-resight survey, and its population estimate doubled over the same years.
• The September 2025 order's operation has not been reported: how many dogs have been held ten days, how many for life, and how the three-member panels have decided are not in any document read.
• Six recorded rabies deaths against an estimate of thousands nationally is a count of reporting, not of rabies.
• No private clinic layer exists here, because Bonbeno's directories do not yet cover an Uttar Pradesh city, 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; Lucknow's figures from The Week of 23 August 2025.
2. The bite and rabies figures are from Annexure I and II to the Lok Sabha reply of 1 April 2025; the national estimate from the WHO India page.
3. The sterilisation, licence and order figures are from The Week's PTI report of 1 August 2025, The Week of 23 August 2025 and the Free Press Journal of 16 September 2025; the grant and central orders from the Lok Sabha reply of 2 December 2025, the PIB release of 19 August 2025, the Animal Birth Control Rules as gazetted, News On AIR of 11 August 2025, 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.
5. The pet shop, breed and crematorium figures are from the Pet Shop Rules, the AWBI circular, Wikipedia's breed list, ETV Bharat of 10 November 2022, ThePrint of 23 October 2023, News On AIR of 28 October 2025, the Central Bureau of Communication's Mann Ki Baat e-book of October 2025 and the Free Press Journal of 22 February 2022. The People Also Ask questions were captured on 2 November 2026 through an Apify run of Google's India results for the focus keyword.