Category: PODCAST

What is The Indie Dog? The indigenous dog? The Indian Dog? The Independent Dog? All of the above?

The stories about the Indie dog are plenty. Everyone I speak to has a different story and yet there’s one common goal. To love, nurture and stop the rapid multiplying of hapless and helpless animals.

They are smart and have figured out how to survive amidst aggressive humans and vehicles each day, whilst looking for food. Humans are the only hope for this group of four-legged mutts.

Humans. Me for sure, but you? Yes?

In each episode I will speak to all sorts of people who have come into the world of animal rescue and rehab, mostly by chance, to discover a calling that they never dreamt they had.

Dogs are funny like that, especially streeties. They know how to yank at your heartstrings. I have cried and laughed through my interviews but come out on the other side with a sense of purpose: that I can make a difference.

Why Older Strays Are Easier To Handle

Mehvash Arslan has been a resident of Cooke Town for the past 10 years or so. She works in an NGO that helps small businesses like the local tea walla, or the isthri lady. But her involvement is unusual. She has accidentally… or deliberately… found herself rescuing older, very sick, severely disabled, even blind […]

Bringing Lazarus Back From The Dead In Kodaikanal

https://open.spotify.com/episode/4QxZEJqWE3UZpUuKKcvLtI?si=Xh2oKptgTkSdrw9KkOJqkQ Vera DeJong is an artist. And her husband George Penner is a baker and jam maker. They are not doctors. They haven’t been to vet school or nursing school. But if you listen to these stories, puppy after puppy, I swear you’ll want them by your side if your dog has a medical emergency. […]

One-Eyed Tripod Finds Unlikely Love

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2ZdfzxJ3cfiaAiJegQicBS?si=HxY5zAIfQVOkfAkELI-Rag When I first Saakshi Kewalramani, she wasn’t quite 17 and she was already heavily into animal rescue, rehab, feeding and, fund raising. This is now almost two years later and Saakshi wants to be a veterinary surgeon. She is trying to gather practical experience before she joins school next year. This is the […]

How Many Streeties Can One Man Rescue

https://open.spotify.com/episode/64y9fn9xhKyAMcyIqLW627?si=PHVj4DjwRf-SwzAmz1d0eA In many part of the world, if there’s an animal in trouble, there’s someone to call to get help, Immediately. That’s not the case here for obvious reasons. We can barely take care of our humans… so expecting special treatment for animals is unrealistic. Yes, there are numbers for Cupa, Care, the BBMP, other […]

Why You Cannot Relocate A Street Dog In India

https://open.spotify.com/episode/4uDuY2fXnK8Fxiyz02mSFD?si=-n1JgVt7TniZX-LoPpkeoQ Now, more than ever in Bangalore, the impunity with which drivers in expensive cars seem to playing some sort of murder-for-fun game with street dogs, the number of dog-hit-and-run cases is steeply rising. We – all of us in the streetie community – need to make ourselves familiar with aspects of the law and […]

Grammy Winner Ricky Kej’s Legal Battles For A Street Dog

https://open.spotify.com/episode/19cXA5TOzQAuDOfnp4IAQ7?si=yGo2dmQqTfWCKtid9HX-iA Ricky Kej is one of the few Indians who’s ever won a Grammy in music. It’s a huge deal. And a huge honour to have him wandering in our midst here in Bangalore, shedding inspiration and encouragement to other musicians as he walks the streets of the city. He’s not shedding alone. Because Ricky […]

Why does Sudha Narayanan feel that shelters are no place for a street dog? How did she bring the birth rate of street dogs at Bangalore International Airport down to zero?

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1899047/10004139

Young girls volunteering to care for street dogs / mysterious poisonings / bake sales and Marie biscuits / colour discrimination in streeties… what’s all that got to do with Richard’s Town? A lot. As it transpires

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1899047/10004139

30 Indie puppies up for adoption, the Consulate of the Netherlands, The Rotary Club of Bangalore and Sunday the 13th of February: What do they all have to do with each other?

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1899047/9991533

Priya Chetty’s Canine Squads, Jude Felix the hockey playing hero, mean landladies, Inkling the dog that got Vinita kicked out of her house #NotWithoutMyDog

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1899047/9900663 She found help, in the name of #JudeFelix, India’s most celebrated hockey player.The life of a street dog may not be easy. But it’s harder still for the people who care for them. This is just one story.