Video of a dog shelter in Iraq is misattributed to India in the context of the recent Supreme Court order on stray dogs
On 11 August 2025, the Supreme Court Bench of Justices Pardiwala and Mahadevan directed the Delhi Government, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, and the authorities of the NCR (Noida, Gurugram, Ghaziabad, Faridabad) to pick up stray dogs and relocate them to shelters and pounds within eight weeks of the date of the order. On 14 August 2025, the Supreme Court reserved its order on pleas seeking a stay of the directions issued by the two-judge Bench on 11 August 2025. Amid this, a video (here, here and here) is going viral on social media showing a large number of dogs in a desert-like area inside a closed gate. It is being claimed that this is an arrangement made by the government for the dogs. Let’s investigate the truth behind this video.
Claim: The viral video shows stray dogs being relocated in India following the recent Supreme Court order on stray dogs.
Fact: The video is from Erbil, Iraq, not India, and has been available on the internet prior to the Supreme Court order. No reports indicate that the government has begun relocating stray dogs to shelters. Hence, the claim is FALSE.
To verify the claim, we performed a reverse image search on Google, which led us to the same video uploaded by a pet-friendly channel named givemeurvoice on their Instagram handle on 10 March 2025, much before the Supreme Court order. In the caption, the channel mentioned that there are over 300,000 stray dogs in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The video was described as being from a hidden place outside Erbil (population 1.8 million), where more than 10,000 dogs are reportedly dumped without enough food or medical care. We also found similar videos uploaded in November 2023 and May 2024, claiming they’re from Iraq. This clearly indicates that the video is not from India but from Iraq.
Further research led us to a local Iraqi media report from December 2023, with stills that match the viral video. According to the report, Erbil Governor Omed Khoshnaw said around 3,000 stray dogs had been collected and moved to a government shelter, with about 80 dogs captured daily. He noted the shelter, modelled on a British initiative in Afghanistan, provides food, water, and care, helping to significantly reduce dog attacks in the city. He also claimed the shelter’s mortality rate is lower than in areas where strays are often killed or die in accidents. However, animal rights groups have raised concerns about neglect in government-run shelters across the Kurdistan Region.
A side-by-side comparison of the viral video and images from the Iraqi media report clearly shows that both were filmed at the same location.
Additionally, till today (20 August 2025), no specific area has been designated for stray dogs after the Supreme Court order. Moreover, the viral video has no connection with India or the ongoing issue of dog relocation; it originates from Iraq.
To sum up, a video of stray dogs in a closed shelter in Iraq is being falsely shared as if it were from India.