Pakistan’s Stray Dog Culling and the Puppies Left to Die

When poisoned bait is laid for street dogs, the killing does not end with the animals who ingest it. It continues afterward quietly, deliberately, and out of sight. In rubble, empty plots, and abandoned buildings, puppies wait for mothers who will never return. In winter, those puppies do not survive.

This week, in Rawalpindi adult dogs were killed using poison. This method is not chosen in ignorance. Those responsible know exactly what follows.

They know lactating mothers will die away from their litters.
They know puppies cannot regulate their body temperature.
They know that without milk, puppies weaken within hours.
They know January nights are cold enough to kill.

The puppies are not overlooked. They are factored in.

Poison Ensures No One Comes Back

Poisoning is uniquely cruel because it guarantees separation. Adult dogs do not die where they are fed; they stumble away, disoriented, convulsing, often dying alone. Their puppies are left behind hidden, unheard, and uncounted.

No records are kept of these deaths. No official numbers exist. The streets look cleared, while suffering is simply pushed underground.

A puppy freezing to death does not appear in any municipal report.

A Race Against Time No One Funds

Once the poison has been laid and the authorities have moved on, the responsibility shifts entirely and unfairly onto small rescue organisations and individual volunteers.

Underfunded, exhausted, and already overwhelmed, they begin racing against the clock.

They go out at dawn until well after dark, listening for cries. They lift concrete slabs with bare hands. They crawl into sewage channels. They pull puppies out already hypothermic, dehydrated, barely breathing. Some are saved. Many are not.

These rescuers do not have the funds to do this work. There is no emergency state support, no compensation, no logistical assistance. Milk replacer, heating pads, transport, antibiotics, veterinary care everything is paid for out of pockets that are already empty.

And yet they go anyway.
How can they not, knowing what will happen if they don’t?

The Emotional Cost No One Acknowledges

The emotional toll on rescuers is immense. They carry the memory of puppies found too late, the cries they could not reach in time, the adult dogs who have died in the worst way imaginable knowledge that every death was futile.

This is not just physical exhaustion. It is moral injury the weight of being left to clean up the consequences of a policy built on cruelty and convenience.

This Is Not Public Health

Authorities continue to justify culling as a matter of safety and rabies control. But killing dogs especially through poisoning does not solve either problem.

Global veterinary consensus is clear, sustained sterilisation and vaccination is the only effective, humane way to manage street dog populations and control rabies. Pakistan’s own courts have echoed this, issuing rulings against illegal culling and in favour of Animal Birth Control programmes.

Poisoning dogs while knowingly condemning their puppies to freeze or starve is not disease control. It is cruelty masquerading as policy.

The Puppies Deserve to Be Seen

What happens after culling operations end is rarely discussed. There are no press releases about orphaned puppies dying in the cold. No official acknowledgement of the rescuers left traumatised and financially ruined. Just silence.

But silence does not erase responsibility.

As long as poisoned bait is used, puppies will continue to die unseen. And as long as authorities know this and proceed anyway, they are not merely killing dogs they are knowingly condemning the most vulnerable to slow, painful deaths.

This is the reality behind the rhetoric.
This is what is happening now.

We would like to extend our grateful thanks as rescuers ourselves to all those on the ground engaged in this most difficult task of saving as many pups as possible. We would also like to thank our friends at Todd’s Welfare Society for the media used in this post. And we would urge you to help the dogs of Pakistan in any way you can.

You can contact Romana at TWS here or we can connect you if you would prefer