Owners must account for unpredictability of pets

The series of screen grabs from the CCTV footage shows how the dog attacked the delivery person

A food delivery person was attacked by a pet German Shepherd in the lift in Panvel, this newspaper reported. The 33-year-old man had just stepped out of the lift when the incident took place. He is undergoing treatment at a Nerul hospital the cost of which is being borne by the dog owner.

He did take anti-rabies shots, but he claimed the pain intensified and he had to be hospitalised for complications.

While animals are unpredictable, they must be handled by somebody who can control them. We have read about incidents of animal cruelty on the streets, in buildings but this proves there is another side to the problem too.

Aggro-filled and fuelled animal activists who are quick to threaten legal action and hurl insults and threats at many as the for-and- against-animals-inside-buildings fights escalate must also realise that animals do in fact, bite and seriously injure residents or visitors at times, and these can be unprovoked. We need to see the same empathy for the victim when people are bitten.

If a dog exhibits such behaviour even once, it is better he is muzzled when outside. Buildings need to have a pet policy - a set of guidelines for pet owners. It is ethical that the owners pay for treatment, if their pet injures somebody, as is being done here. Pet dogs especially will be better behaved if trained well, though that cannot be a sure shot but it does help most of the time.

Today especially, we certainly see an uptick in delivery personnel in residential premises, as food delivery apps have taken off. There are grocery and medicine deliveries too which are zooming. With so many unknown persons in buildings, it is important that pets are controlled well.