Lives of Streeties

Over the course of the last few months, we have gradually come to realise that we have been staring at something fascinating - Streeties have been managing extraordinarily complicated interactions, collaborations and negotiations with the people around, something most of us struggle to achieve after years of training. This has been piquing our interest and so BHARCS is launching a new study as part of the #LivesOfStreeties project. This is the second study that is part of the

Behaviourism is a term that describes the study of animal behaviour, usually referring to measured responses to stimuli or trained behavioural responses in a laboratory context, without a particular emphasis on evolutionary adaptivity. Ethology is the study of animal behaviour, usually with a focus on behaviour under natural conditions, and viewing behaviour as an evolutionarily adaptive trait. At BHARCS, our focus is not on behaviourism, but on ethology. That’s why we love s

A mum and her puppies have turned up at our exploring site. Every morning when we go there, the mum shows that she does not like us being there. The puppies are cautions, except for this one. Nishi has managed to make friends with her, as you can see in these slightly old videos. Tiggy is still working through her issues with them and that's another story for another day. Today we met the dogs again. The mum seems to be "adopting". Her group of "puppies" seems to have grown f

The intent of #livesofstreeties is to bust myths about streeties. Today the myth we want to bust is that streeties are somehow different from our pet dogs. It's this mental separation that makes people afraid of street dogs. Even among academics, I sometimes see people argue that street dog studies are not relevant in understanding pet dogs because pet dogs are bred to be different. Well, here in India, streeties are mixes of our aboriginal breeds and several non-Indian breed

Media only seems to talk about street dogs when they gravely hurt humans and then the media paints an elaborately sensational narrative of the "feral dogs of India" being "let loose on the people". Of course, no one can deny that as resources shrink, man-animal conflict only goes up and that is true of dogs too. But the overwhelming reality of life of street dogs is not all of us running away from feral dogs, but simple straight from the heart friendships between human and do

Our street dogs are not just adorable bundles of love and joy, but also a source of information that fascinates the world. After all, dogs are a human's best friend and many of us are eager to know more and more about them. The best way to get to know an animal is to observe them in situations that provide them complete free will...and for dogs, that happens only when they are "free ranging". Our streeties fit that bill and hence become fascinating. We are so proud that our s

In the 1960s, Blue cross of India discovered that the Madras High Commision had been trying to control dog population through culling for over 100 years and had not achieved much success. After the study, the High Commision had to admit that their strategy had been a failure and adopted ABC instead. Effective ABC has proved to be far successful towards this end and for now can be considered the only sustainable effective solution (if done right). There are several case studie

Streeties lead the most unconventional of lives. Dogs are and have always been extreme survivors and can be highly creative when it comes to problem solving in their lives. They are also very keen observers of humans and seem to have the ability to identify a "dog friendly" person with ease. While there are many stories of kind humans adopting streeties, there are also many untold stories of genius streeties who adopt humans. However, these adoptions happen on the terms of th

This is the 5AM video of our "Hotel Canine". This is the last video of this year's street dog study. It is also the first video of this group, after the departure of Kajal. Compare it to the earlier videos. The hotel has emptied. All her suitors are gone! The night after I took Kajal, there was incessant howling. Was it just a coincidence or did the howling have something to do with Kajal's absence. If you do a bit of research into why dogs or wolves howl, you'll see that it

I saw another love story today. These dogs are not regulars here. They must be a. group passing through this area. I wonder where they are off to. But, there sure is some drama here too. This one is a great one to observe calming signals that are so subtle and yet clearly very effective. Of course, their love and their social lives are incredibly fascinating for us dog people. However, the sad reality of Indian streeties is that they live in a harsh environment of resource cr