Free-roaming dogs (FRD) are responsible for attacks on humans and other animals, damage to property, road accidents, contaminating the environment with faeces, spreading garbage waste and causing noise pollution (1, 2). There has been a rapid increase in the number of dogs during the last decade in India, with a concurrent increase in the number of dog bites to humans (3, 4). The large number of unrestricted, unowned, free-roaming dogs within the country is responsible for 99% of all dog bite transmitted rabies in humans (5, 6). A large uncontrolled population of free-roaming canines is also damaging to their own welfare (2,7), as a lack of veterinary care leaves these dogs malnourished and often suffering from diseases and injuries (7, 8). Interventions for rabies control are feasible for household pets as they generally receive adequate veterinary attention, however, such care is difficult for FRD (9, 10). The interventions usually applied to control rabies and to decrease the FRD population include culling, mass vaccination and sterilisation (10, 11). However culling does not result in a sustained reduction in the number of FRD (12, 13), and the efficacy of sterilisation on population control remains debatable (14, 15). There is a growing unanimity among researchers that mass vaccination is the best way to eradicate dogbite related rabies (15, 16) and it is generally agreed that successful mass vaccination campaigns require 70% coverage of the dog population to achieve critical herd immunity against the disease (5, 17). However, a lack of information about the true population size of FRD raises doubts about the coverage of mass vaccination campaigns in many locations (18), and restricts critical assessment of disease intervention and population control measures and welfare issues relating to FRD (19). Although knowing the size, dynamics and demographics of the target FRD population prior to the implementation of an intervention and for post-intervention assessment is crucial (20, 21), there is no accepted standardised enumeration technique. Formulating an enumeration methodology for FRD is very challenging not only in countries where registration and licensing of dogs is not mandatory (22), such as India, but even in countries where registration is mandatory, e.g., estimating population of free-ranging dogs in Australian indigenous communities. Various studies have used rate of capture (regression method), Beck’s method, (23), distance methods (24), extensive counts in the chosen areas and extrapolation of this number (25–27), mark-resight surveys (27, 28), Huggin’s closed capture techniques (29) and Schumacher-Eschmeyer method (30) to estimate the FRD population. There is also growing acceptance that methods for estimating the population size of wild animals yield reliable results when applied to FRD (31, 32). However, few researchers have critically evaluated and compared the different evaluation methods. As the main purpose to know the FRD population is to achieve effective vaccination coverage to eliminate rabies , rather than to accurately enumerate the population per se, the methods used should consider the time and monetary constraints involved, while still being reliable. In other words, while it is important to derive a robust estimate of the population size of free-roaming dogs, a method that can accurately estimate 70% of the population with minimal resource input or by using minimum number of direct count surveys is a practical requirement. This study was undertaken in a rural setting of Shirsuphal village of Baramati Town in western India to (1) compare the estimates of the FRD population obtained with different analytical methods; (2) study the impact of extrinsic abiotic factors including temperature, humidity and wind velocity on FRD counts; and (3) recommend an enumeration technique that allows for rapid, yet robust population estimates to determine the number of FRD requiring vaccination against rabies to achieve the 70% vaccination coverage.