What is our mission?
Humane solutions. Healthier communities.
For more than two decades, Animal India Trust has worked towards a simple goal: to create healthier, more stable and more humane communities for people and street dogs.
Our approach combines Animal Birth Control (ABC), anti-rabies vaccination, veterinary treatment and Catch–Neuter–Vaccinate–Return (CNVR). Rather than removing dogs from the communities they know, we work to reduce reproduction, prevent disease and improve the health of the dogs already living there.
Our services for community dogs are provided free of charge to the public.
What is ABC?
Animal Birth Control (ABC) is the humane sterilisation and vaccination of free-roaming dogs to help manage their population over time.
Sterilisation prevents dogs from producing unwanted litters, while vaccination helps protect individual dogs and the wider community from rabies. Together, these measures address two of the most important challenges associated with free-roaming dog populations: unchecked reproduction and disease transmission.
Over the past 23 years, AIT's sustained work has contributed to significant population control in the areas where we have operated and we remain committed to continuing that work.
Our CNVR Process
1. Catch — From their own neighbourhood
Our ABC field teams work in specific areas across Delhi NCR, carefully catching dogs for the programme. Dogs from the same area are brought to the facility together, helping us maintain accurate records and minimise unnecessary mixing between different dog populations.
2. Check — Every dog is examined
Before surgery, each dog is examined by our veterinary team. We look for existing health problems, injuries, infections and other conditions that may need attention before or during treatment.
3. Neuter — Safe, humane surgery
Dogs are sterilised by our trained veterinary surgeons and paraveterinary team. Sterilisation prevents future reproduction and is a central part of humane, long-term population management.
4. Vaccinate & Treat — More than just sterilisation
Every dog receives an anti-rabies vaccination as part of the programme. Dogs are also treated for internal and external parasites.
If our veterinary team identifies another significant medical condition — such as a tumour, hernia, infection or other illness — we treat it wherever possible. This may include medication, surgery or other appropriate veterinary treatment, including chemotherapy when medically indicated.
5. Identify — So they are not caught again
Dogs are permanently identified through AIT's identification system, including an ear notch, so field teams can recognise dogs that have already been through the programme and avoid unnecessary repeat capture.
6. Recover — A safe place to heal
After surgery, dogs are moved into recovery under the care of our kennel team. They are provided with food and water, monitored for post-operative complications and kept in a clean, hygienic and well-ventilated environment while they recover.
7. Return — Back where they belong
Once the veterinary team gives the dog the all-clear, our field team returns them to the same area where they were originally caught.
This is an important part of humane CNVR. These dogs have established territories, food sources and social relationships. Returning them to their own neighbourhood allows them to continue living in the environment they know.
AIT is not a long-term shelter for Delhi NCR's entire street-dog population. Our facility has limited capacity, and keeping every sterilised dog permanently would mean that we could reach far fewer animals. For this reason, healthy dogs are returned to their original communities after recovery.
Why vaccinate against Rabies?
Rabies is almost invariably fatal once clinical symptoms appear, but it is 100% vaccine-preventable.
Dogs are responsible for up to 99% of human rabies transmission, making vaccination of free-roaming dogs one of the most important ways to prevent the disease at its source. WHO recommends achieving vaccination coverage of at least 70% of dogs in at-risk areas to interrupt transmission.
Every dog vaccinated through AIT's programme is therefore more than one protected animal. It is one more vaccinated dog within a community.
Our sterilisation and vaccination work go hand in hand: fewer puppies being born, healthier dogs living on the streets, and greater protection against rabies.
Why Not Culling?
Culling may seem like a quick answer to a visible problem, but it is neither a humane nor a sustainable solution.
From an ethical perspective, killing healthy animals simply because they are born on the streets does not address the circumstances that brought them there. These are sentient animals capable of experiencing pain, fear and suffering. A humane population-management programme should seek to reduce suffering, not simply remove the animals experiencing it.
There is also a practical problem. Removing dogs does not stop other dogs from entering the same territory, and simply killing dogs has not been shown to provide lasting control of either dog populations or rabies transmission.
CNVR offers a fundamentally different approach. Instead of killing the dogs already living in our communities, we prevent future generations from being born into the same cycle. Dogs are sterilised, vaccinated, treated where necessary and returned to the territories they know.
It is a solution that combines compassion with population management. Protecting animals while addressing the problem at its source.
We believe population control should mean fewer dogs being born into suffering, not more dogs being killed.
Why Sterilisation Matters
An unsterilised female dog can begin reproducing from a young age, and free-ranging dogs can produce multiple litters over their reproductive lives. Research on roaming dogs in Jaipur found an average litter size of approximately 5-6 puppies, with females continuing to reproduce through their adult years.
But life for puppies born on the street can be extremely difficult. They face traffic, disease, parasites, hunger, injury and other hazards from the moment they are born. In a five-year study of free-ranging dogs in West Bengal, only about 19% of observed puppies survived to reproductive age, with human-related causes accounting for 63% of recorded mortality.
The mother faces her own challenges. Pregnancy and nursing place significant nutritional and physical demands on a female, while complications can occur during pregnancy, birth and lactation.
Preventing unwanted litter is therefore more than population control. It means preventing puppies from being born into a life of uncertain survival while protecting mothers from repeated pregnancies.
Why our System Works
Our Catch–Neuter–Vaccinate–Return (CNVR) approach is humane, practical and sustainable because it tackles the problem at its source rather than simply removing dogs from the streets. Sterilisation prevents future litters, vaccination helps protect against rabies, and every dog we bring into our facility gives us an opportunity to do much more, from treating internal and external parasites to addressing infections, injuries, tumours and hernias, and providing surgery or even chemotherapy when needed. Dogs are given time and care to recover in a clean, safe environment before being returned to the exact area they came from. Over time, fewer puppies are born into the dangers of street life, existing dogs become healthier and vaccinated, and the population becomes more stable, all while treating every dog with dignity and compassion. All core ABC and CNVR services provided by AIT to community dogs are free of charge to the public.