Residents say burglaries in the area have reduced since they began training and taking care of stray dogs

CHENNAI: While the city corporation’s helpline receives requests non-stop to catch stray dogs, residents of a Villivakkam neighbourhood choose to have a symbiotic relationship with them. The community dogs on 8th Street at Agathiyar Nagar are fed, trained and taken care of by residents to keep burglars out of sight.

Meena Vasudevan, who lives in the locality, said, “There were no dogs here three years back. But one or two came in 2015 and I started feeding them. We realised that when the dogs were there, thefts in the area reduced. So we called up Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) to get the dogs vaccinated and sterilized. Slowly, the pack grew and now we have around five to six stray dogs. We feed them regularly and train them,” she said. Meena spends Rs 250 on meat and buys 1.5kg rice to feed the dogs daily.

Each dog has a name and a tag, and the residents of the street are familiar to them. “They don’t chase everyone passing by. They only chase those who drive rashly,” said G Vasudevan, a resident.

R Venkatesan, another resident, said there was a lot of thefts earlier. “Many bike parts were stolen in the dead of the night. Some men would also consume alcohol in front of our homes and it was a nuisance. All these issues have stopped since we adopted the strays . We feel a lot safer. And the dogs are extremely friendly, they haven’t harmed anyone,” he said.

But some residents are against their presence. “Though they aren’t a nuisance, some are scared of the dogs. We try to explain how well-behaved they are and break the ice,” said Meena. Vasudevan said if all localities treated the strays well and trained them, Chennai would become safer. “They are not a menace . It depends on how we see them,” he said.

