Eighteen dogs were still in the possession of dog-meat wholesalers in Nagaland when three long-standing traders decided to leave the industry. The dogs were surrendered through an alternative-livelihood programme before they could be sold. Some were adopted locally, while the others received veterinary examinations, treatment, vaccinations and microchips before being moved to safety.
It was a positive outcome for those dogs, but it also confirmed that the trade has not disappeared.
Dog meat is not commonly eaten across India. Its consumption and commercial trade are concentrated in limited parts of the northeast, particularly Nagaland and reportedly areas of Mizoram and Manipur. Nagaland is a small state bordering Myanmar, with its own distinct communities, traditions and constitutional protections. It would be inaccurate and inflammatory to present this as something representative of India or its people generally.
The issue is a regional trade that continues to place street, community and potentially owned dogs at risk.
Dogs are caught or stolen from communities in neighbouring states before being transported into Nagaland, Mizoram and Manipur. The wider trade has repeatedly been associated with dogs being confined inside sacks, restrained for long journeys and transported without adequate access to food, water or movement.
Some may be free-roaming dogs with no formally registered owner. Others may be community dogs known and cared for locally. Some may be pets taken from families. Once they enter the supply chain, it can be almost impossible to establish where they came from because there may be no microchip, photograph, transport record or individual identity connecting the animal to the place from which they disappeared.
They move through a chain of capture, purchase, transport, wholesale distribution and sale. Every stage provides another opportunity for their identity and origin to be lost.
Approximately 30,000 dogs a year were transported into Nagaland for the dog-meat trade. This is an estimate rather than a verified annual figure published by the Indian or Nagaland governments, and it should be described as such. The absence of official data leaves us unable to establish exactly how many dogs are taken, transported, sold, killed or intercepted each year.
If a dog disappears from a street or community and is moved across a state border without being recorded, their removal may never appear in official street-dog figures. An owned dog may never be connected to the family searching for them. Even when a vehicle is intercepted, there may be no reliable process for establishing where each animal originated or whether somebody has reported them missing.
The surrender of the 18 dogs offers a different way of disrupting the trade. The three wholesalers had reportedly supplied dogs to markets in the Nagaland districts of Dimapur and Mokokchung, as well as neighbouring Manipur, for more than 20 years. Through the livelihood-transition programme, they moved into mushroom farming and pickle production.
By July 2026, 30 dog-meat vendors had moved into alternative livelihoods and that another 30 were expected to join the programme. This approach recognises that some people involved in the trade may have limited economic choices. Removing one trader without changing the conditions that made the work necessary may simply create space for somebody else to replace them.
Supporting people to leave can reduce the supply chain without abandoning them to poverty. It does not remove the need for clear legislation and enforcement, but it addresses an economic reality that punishment alone may not change.
Nagaland Tried To Stop The Commercial Trade
In July 2020, the Government of Nagaland issued a notification prohibiting the commercial import and trading of dogs, the operation of dog markets and the commercial sale of dog meat in markets and restaurants.
The government said it was enforcing India’s Food Safety and Standards Act and the regulations governing meat and meat products. Those regulations identify the species recognised within the regulated food chain, and dogs are not included. A 2014 circular issued by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India stated that slaughtering species outside those listed in the regulations was not permissible.
Nagaland therefore presented its notification as enforcement of the national food-safety framework. The order was published by the Nagaland Department of Information and Public Relations, but dog-meat traders challenged it in court.
In June 2023, a single judge of the Gauhati High Court set the notification aside. The case did not end there. Appeals were brought before a two-judge bench, which delivered its decision on 22 April 2026.
The judges disagreed. One judge would have dismissed the appeals, leaving the 2023 decision in place. The other concluded that the state notification had legal backing, that the Chief Secretary possessed the authority to issue it and that the earlier judgment should be overturned.
Because the court was divided, the matter was referred to the Chief Justice for further consideration, potentially by a third judge. The April 2026 judgment did not produce a final resolution.
This is why describing the legal position requires care. India’s food-safety framework does not recognise dogs as animals permitted to enter the regulated meat supply. Nagaland also made a specific attempt to prohibit the commercial dog trade and sale of dog meat. The validity of that notification, however, remains caught in unresolved litigation.
The commercial slaughter, transport and sale of dogs must also be distinguished from the private act of consumption. Nagaland’s notification principally addressed importation, trading, markets and commercial sales. Saying simply that “eating dog meat is illegal throughout India” removes the legal complexity that the courts are still trying to resolve.
The Dogs Cannot Wait For The Courts
The uncertainty affects what happens on the ground. Police, food-safety officers, municipal authorities and veterinary departments need to know precisely which activities they are expected to prevent and which powers they can use.
When dogs are intercepted, every animal should be photographed, examined and checked for identification. The location and circumstances of the interception should be recorded, and the information should be compared with reports of missing dogs. Their eventual reclaim, adoption, transfer or continuing care should remain connected to the same individual record.
Opening a sack or stopping a vehicle is only the beginning of a rescue. The dog must be given back an identity.
India is already classified as a Crisis country on the Dog Desk Animal Action Global Stray Dog Crisis Map because of the scale and complexity of developments affecting its free-roaming dogs. The dog-meat trade is not the principal reason for that classification and should never be used to characterise the whole country. It is, however, another route through which unrecorded dogs can disappear from streets and communities without their eventual outcome being known.
Authorities should publish the number of dogs intercepted from the trade, the states from which they are believed to have originated and what happened to them afterwards. Interstate transport networks must be investigated, and accommodation must be available so that enforcement does not leave rescued dogs with nowhere safe to go.
Livelihood-transition programmes should continue alongside that work. The three wholesalers who surrendered these dogs disrupted part of a supply chain that they had participated in for two decades. Their decision demonstrates that change can protect animals while giving people a viable route away from the trade. Eighteen dogs escaped it.
Until the law is resolved, the supply routes are disrupted and the dogs are individually recorded, we cannot know how many others did not.
