My fawn-coloured Lab was born in Feb 2012. Ageing faster than me, she is 86 human years today. Like we thought of our aged mothers, my wife and I think of her as a venerable old lady who needs special attention. She just about manages to move about herself. While she doesn’t go for walks, she eats well. I remember it was out of the blue one evening that my 16-year-old daughter brought her – a gift from a friend, to our house as a 50-day-old pup. Even as she came home, she was given a name. There is some affinity between dogs and names ending with ‘y’ – so, ours was Fizzy. We were not great dog lovers but, frolicking all over the place, Fizzy unabashedly loved us. In time, we came to love her and give her access to most of the house.
Dr Sathya with her clinics resident cat Jaws.
Our second pet was a product of the infamous puppy mills. A black with patches of white Basset Hound, we bought her from a shop in Arumbakkam. I remember her frantically scurrying out of a cage into our lives. If Fizzy was predictable, Cleo was quite a character. Slightly taller than a Dachshund, she seemed longer too. She had silky smooth long and drooping ears and solemn red eyes as if she had experienced it all. She got a measure of Fizzy and teased her no end. She loved bounding in open spaces. For all her verve, her life took a tragic turn when one summer she had a seizure – first mistaken for a heat stroke. But when it continued the year round, we knew it was something serious. The seizures were taking the life out of her and making us miserable. She lived for nine years and in the last three years, once in a couple of months, she went through a series of seven to eight seizures in the space of two days. There was little we could do by way of treatment. At one point, our vet hinted that we could put her down but, god bless her, she passed away on her own on my father’s death anniversary.
Ragini of Anna Nagar has two indoor cats – Fritz who is six-and-a-half years old and Crust six years old. The two came into her life during the pandemic. Contrary to the impression that cats keep to themselves, Fritz and Crust are quite communicative and interactive in different ways. Fritz demands to be petted nonstop. Crust doesn’t want to be petted but is happy just sitting in her lap. Ragini feels they instinctively know when she is leaving home and miss her. As soon as she is back, they follow her everywhere. At bedtime they are sure to curl up with her. Cats spell happiness for Ragini and vice versa.
To get a vet’s point of view of pets in the city, I quizzed Dr. Sathya Priya, a veterinary surgeon who practises in Anna Nagar East. “I see a much stronger emotional bond between people and their animals today than I did when I was a PG student at Madras Veterinary College five years ago. More and more people genuinely see their dogs and cats as family. We’ve had people tell us that they want to experience caring for a dog before they have children. But there is still a long way to go when it comes to understanding their behavioural, medical and emotional needs,” is what she said.
Her biggest challenge is knowing that sometimes she cannot help an animal in the way she wants to. Despite growing awareness, there are still many animals who fall through the cracks – abandonment, abuse, irresponsible breeding, and animals living in situations where their needs simply are not understood. “For me, that helplessness is much harder than the long hours or the pressures of running a practice. Because when you care deeply about what you do, the work itself is rarely the difficult part, the difficult part is knowing that sometimes what you do isn’t enough,” she says.
Sathya and her husband have three cats – Atticus, Saya and Toto, and a dog – Kufri. The four cats at her clinic are its unofficial mascots. Her clinic supports around 20-25 dogs and about 10 cats including their feeding and medical care. I asked her how she landed up as a vet. “As a child, I was quite an introvert. My first dog was my best friend, and animals were always where I felt the most comfortable and understood. I remember taking my dog to a veterinarian and suddenly thinking – this is what I could do, spend my life around animals and care for them,” recalls Sathya.
Sai with a rescued Rat snake.
About the Madras Veterinary College (established on October 1, 1903) where she did her Master’s in Surgery and Radiology, she said the exposure to a large and varied caseload, advanced equipment, medicines and a busy teaching hospital environment gave her an entirely different clinical experience. She graduated from the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Veterinary Education and Research in Pondicherry. Sathya’s favourite quote comes from Jane Goodall: “You cannot share your life with a dog or a cat and not know perfectly well that animals have personalities and minds and feelings.”
Eshita’s love for animals and flair for photography motivated her to become a ‘pet photographer’ in 2013. Having done shoots of dogs, cats, a hamster, birds and horses (at The Farm in OMR), she learnt to be patient, strike up a connection with the pets, sense the energy and go with the flow. Not being able to direct or stage the shoot, moments were made on the spot. “Pets are always their true selves,” she says. I remember Fizzy enjoying her shoot with Eshita when the latter had just made a beginning.
In February 2025, when we had to visit New Zealand and so board Fizzy, not satisfied with the kennels we inspected, we zeroed in on Sai Kiran in Manapakkam. A soft-spoken person who exudes trust, we left Fizzy under his care and took off for three-and-a-half months with no separation anxiety for either of us. Says Sai, “My idea of Home Boarding was to ensure pets stay healthy and happy even after going back home. We started with a ‘No Kennel No Leash’ concept where pets can enjoy their stay without missing their home. They are served healthy, hygienic home cooked meals and allowed free movement around the house. Keeping this in mind we made sure that we take in just two or three dogs at a time to give our complete attention to them. So space constraint was never a problem.
Sai learnt to be compassionate from his father V.S. Chandrashekhar who rescued injured cats, dogs, squirrels and birds. His mother smears Sai Baba’s udi on her pets. He was part of the campaign to trap, neuter and release the clowder of cats in the Kapaleeswarar temple in 2018. He helps in giving a respectful send-off to many of the community strays, making sure they are buried or cremated properly. He was a hardware and networking engineer with Scope International and Sutherland before he decided to quit and start Happy Paws.
Sai’s Mother with Haibibi and Fizzy.
Sowbhagyalakshmi Srirama Bharathi who manages the Sri Sadagopan Thirunarayana Swamy Divya Prabandha pathasala in Jalladianpettai, has her growing number of cows to tend. She believes they have a sixth sense that supposedly only humans have. When bothered by mosquitos in the evening, they moo till she rushes to light the anti-mosquito incense in the goshala. They are alert to the visitors. Even newly-born calves recognise Sowbhagyalakshmi and reciprocate her love and affection.
To end on a lighter vein, I share these lines from the Reader’s Digest: With a dog, you feed him, you give him plenty of affection, you take him for walks and he thinks, ‘Wow, this guy must be a god.’ With a cat, you feed him, you love him, you care for him and he thinks, ‘Wow, I must be a god.’