My initiation to this wonderful world of weird dog lovers took place way back in 2006. A very well-meaning young colleague told me that like me he, too, loved dogs, especially ‘Labradogs‘. This was actually par for the course for a city which has more Pomeranians per square metre than any other city in the world. No true blue Dilliwala can call the breed by its actual name. They all refer to these yippy little dogs as ‘Pomerians’. What’s in a name after all?
There are some dog mysteries unique to the times we live in. In the 1980s-90s, you never heard of anyone buying or selling pedigreed puppies. You simply found good homes for your puppies. My family in Calcutta wasn’t special. I knew others who also had Afghan Hounds, Boxers, Saint Bernards, Great Danes, Dobermans, Alsatians, and had simply adopted them from someone they knew. And most people also had ‘Mongrels’ – what they now call ‘Indies’ – and none of it was a big deal.
So, I was a bit shocked when I first realised that many people sell their own pet’s litter to the highest bidder. But then, that sort of explains why a certain breed of people don’t think twice about deciding whom their children will marry according to how rich the other family is. Your offspring must be monetised.
The National Capital Region is truly a conundrum in the way it treats its animals. The tonier the colony, the more they seem to hate animals. And every stray is a menace according to them. Of course, it’s not as bad as Kerala, where there seems to be a state-wide allergy to strays and cynopaths poison mongrels without compunction. NCR, in this respect, is much more civilised.
I also attribute a fair amount of anti-pet dog ‘sentiments’ to the lack of civic sense of dog-owners who don’t clean up after their pets have pooped during a walk. But even then, the irrational hatred of dogs is absurd. But then, if such behaviour is meted out to fellow humans as we get to hear all too frequently, it’s hardly surprising that the sentiment is extended and amplified against animals as well.
News reports on dogs attacking humans hardly, if ever, get into why these dogs are aggressive. They usually are because they’re hungry if they’re strays, or because they’ve been trained to be fight dogs. In my colony in Gurgaon, which had three extremely friendly stray dogs, a resident had sent out an email in which he ‘privately’ proposed that he would step out with his shotgun at night and shoot the strays. Thankfully, his plan was scuppered when he found out that his mail was marked to everyone on the colony email list.
Delhi/NCR boasts of some of the most wonderful charitable rescue homes and shelters, as well as the best veterinarian hospitals in the country. But it’s also where the most number of pedigreed dogs get bought and then abandoned on the streets when they either become bigger than the owners had imagined when they had adopted them, or fall ill. Then, they are discarded for newer, better ‘models’. And you can forget about most people adopting a stray. Pedigree nahin to mumkeen nahin.
The good thing is that because our politicians are held up as gods, they set an example even with animals. When Uttar Pradesh chief minister Adityanath is photographed feeding his dog Kallu, all his supporters figure it’s great to pet and feed dogs, instead of going on about ‘pappu-love’. Maybe that’ll change opinions about dogs, especially strays – our politicians and film stars show their fans the way.