Would-be journalists are always told that it is the unusual that makes news. Like when a man bites a dog.

Which is what has happened in India.

Upset that a stray rabid dog was fleeing with a duck from his compound, a man in southern India caught the animal, wrestled with it and bit it hard in the throat before it was beaten to death, a newspaper said.

A report in the Hindustan Times said that the dog had become a menace to villagers in Pakakkadavu, in the Kollam district of Kerala state, which, like most of India, has a large stray dog population.

The 65-year-old man wrestled with the dog in a ditch near his home and bit it so hard that it bled from its neck while one of his hands was in the grip of the animal's mouth, the report said.

Neighbours separated the two and beat the poor dog to death. The man was being treated in the state capital of Thiruvananthapuram for rabies, it said.