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They live on the street, they have to fend for themselves, they may not be able to talk, but they make more people happy in their lifetime than any average human.
Dogs are common to households, in fact dogs have lived alongside humans for more than 40.000 years. Urban stray dogs generally are omnivorous, hence they hunt for small mammals like rodents or feed off the garbage humans throw out.
May it be street dogs or pet dogs, some people love them and some people don't. The dislike for dogs stems from fear and/or lack of knowledge about how to behave with a dog. Dogs are generally docile until you intentionally cause them harm, a dog doesn't bite for no reason. While we humans may never need a reason to hurt or hunt animals, animals never do so without an explanation for the same.
Pet dogs live in protected environments, shielded away from the negatives of the society, but the street dogs have to face it all. A female street dog if pregnant has to search for food, shelter, a whelping place, and care for her newborns even in her weakest state. In spite of this, they smartly search for hiding spots where their puppies could be safe from their natural predators.
These females will tend to trust humans that feed them or approach gently, hence they hardly consider humans as threat.
One such female of the many dogs I feed had given birth to 5 puppies close to the M.S. University exit gate. She dug a den in a mud pile, deep enough to prevent the puppies from climbing out, and dedicatedly nursed and cared for them. I feed her biscuits, dog food and milk daily apart from which a few kind individuals from the society like the watchmen and the dhobis would often feed her. She was a healthy dog with healthy growing puppies. The bliss lasted hardly a month though. When puppies are about 25 days old, their senses become keener, they sleep lesser, and start to venture out to explore. At this stage more people come to know of their hiding place.
It had probably been their 2nd day of exploring around the cave, some hate-filled human must have spotted them the day before. That grim day, early in the morning they were poisoned and left for dead. I found their bodies scattered across the entrance of their den, all seeming to be asleep but on a closer look one could see their faces wet from all the licking, their mother had tried to wake them up but in vain.
All the puppies, inches away from each other, had had their last playtime. The mother hadn't allowed anyone close, she kept licking and nudging them to wake up. I had to hold her back as she struggled and howled while her once healthy, now poisoned 5 puppies were buried close to their den. 
The mother roamed around looking for her puppies, full of milk to feed them. She would howl all night, calling out to them. Her health deteriorated due to the trauma. She lost weight, her fur became dull, she was visibly sad. Nothing could comfort her. They may be animals, but losing young ones is major trauma.
Slowly she healed, it's almost 6 weeks since that incident, even today as she passes by that den she pauses, sniffs for a familiar smell, goes to it and still comes back with a confused look. She doesn't understand what caused her puppies to fall over while playing, doesn't understand why puppies with no wounds stopped responding to her calls.
I don’t know who did it, or what was the reason behind it, if any. Later on talking to the people in the society I have realised that this has been happening for a while. Two other females in her pack were pregnant but I never saw their puppies, another female in the adjoining lane had given birth to puppies which were soon poisoned.
No reason can justify killing innocent life. These are mute creatures, they express their pain through their eyes. I am now worried for the new puppies that have been born, will they survive? Can they remain hidden from that Monster?
We are ‘human’, we are civilised, we don’t behave like ‘animals’. I wonder if we got the meaning of these words reversed.
