I have lived in 5 different countries, and I have not noticed significant numbers of stray dogs in any of them (I am sure the number is technically non-zero, but I never saw them). I have visited many more countries, and I have only ever really seen stray dogs in Costa Rica. YMMV.
Those are scary big dogs.
Cats of course, are still everywhere.
City hall feeds them and somebody even grooms them.
The smell of a cat colony has to be smelt to be believed. It’s up there with the worst smells I’ve experienced.
That's a rare sentence that pretty much works all three ways.
It was 3:00 AM so there was no human activity, and seeing 20+ dogs 5 to 6 blocks running around even while in a car was unnerving.
On the other hand we have a ton of foxes in and around London. Gorgeous creatures but quite a nuisance at times, like when they get into bins or making ungodly* noises at all all hours of the night.
* I originally misspelled this "undogly", which also works, I guess.
It can take a while to catch a stray, plenty long enough for them to successfully breed, which just multiplies the problem!
People will NOT feed strays
People will adopt strays
Local councils (municipalities) collect them and there are a lot of shelters
(there is zero rabies here which helps a lot as strays are not inherently dangerous)
I don’t think there’s anything remarkable about no stray dogs in the UK. Further, since dogs don’t breed as rapidly as other stray animals (especially cats) and also have far shorter lifespans, there are far easier and far more humane ways and of eliminating stray dogs without mass killing them.
We also came across them from time to time in Afghanistan.
Friends of mine have a farm in central VA. There is a pack of dogs that crosses their property, but they aren't truly stray - one of the neighbors "owns" them (I use "owns" loosely, as they aren't kept as house pets in the normal suburban sense of the word).
I'm in the suburbs and a stray dog would be caught and taken to a shelter. There are some coyotes, though.
There are barely even any pet dogs in France
Additionally, the public restroom procedure in Paris is hyper-alien to anyone from a major US city. I imagine there are a lot of very ignorant 20-something US kids dropping nuggets at night in shrubs out of sheer necessity.
Imagine a normal, closeted US kid, doing a weekend or Semester abroad in France. They go to a friendly looking Irish expat pub, put down a pint or two, head to the loo, and just see A HOLE IN THE FLOOR.
If I was that sheltered child, I'd poop in the shrubs too.
https://fr.statista.com/statistiques/1014881/population-chie...
That requirement for a licence but not the actual legislation was withdrawn meaning that definition of a stray I just gave will be the law if I recall correctly.
After the passing of a amendment to remove the mandatory dog licence then began this present era of human killing violent and uncontrollable breeds that kills innocents in the UK on a daily basis.
I want to see this definition enforced to control professional untrained and incapable in any case dog walkers who parade with entirely patently pack behaviour animated hounds around our streets and parks.
Besides fouling our byways and recreation grounds on a industrial scale concomitant with the damage to human health that entails, this is unlawful menacing of the public and private unlicensed enterprise founded on the breach of the law and hence must be eradicated.
To my horror I'm recently seeing pirate dog walkers inside the old City of London aka the square mile our beautiful and peaceful financial district where you will stay for weeks without ever seeing a law enforcement officer because we don't need them to intervene in anything because civilian life carries on peacefully regardless just as I well remember it always did almost everywhere just a few decades ago.