All stories about dogs should be Good Stories, which is why the situation in Taloja, India is especially heartbreaking. Recently, photos and videos of blue pooches in the industrial town have cropped up online, raising the obvious question: What the hell happened?
Sadly, the answer isn’t very cute. According to The Hindustan Times, the dogs were swimming in a local river that had been polluted by a company releasing industrial waste into it, including some sort of cerulean dye. Activists in the area were able to get the company shut down after filing a complaint to the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB), which concluded the plant was indeed releasing a mysterious blue dye into the Kasadi river. The name of the company allegedly responsible has not yet been released.
It’s unclear exactly how many dogs have been affected by the dye, but thankfully, the ones that have been caught — and cleaned — by local SPCA members have been perfectly healthy.
“The dye is possibly water based as it washed off after two regular baths,” an animal care worker at the Thane SPCA told National Geographic.
While the factory allegedly responsible for releasing the blue dye has been shut down, local activists say this isn’t enough.
“Shutting down one industry, as MPCB has done, only results in daily wage laborers losing their bread and butter,” animal rights activist Arati Chauhan told The Hindustan Times. “There are many other industries in the area that pose a threat to the flora, fauna and a threat of more such cases is a possibility. There is a need for pollution monitoring of all plants and development of adequate green cover around industrial sites.”
Hopefully, all the Good Boys and Girls in Taloja can be humanely captured and cleaned. All puppers — and people — deserve to swim in water that hasn’t been tainted with industrial waste.