By Sheelah Gullion, CPDT-KA, CFDM, CSAT, BCSPCA AnimalKind
As a professional dog trainer, combining business and pleasure is not unfamiliar, so when the opportunity to join a group of dog pros on a visit to India to learn about the street dogs—or “Indies”—there, I won’t deny I jumped at the chance.
The trip was the brainchild of Indian dog trainer and behaviour consultant Kapil Patwardhan who, like me, is a graduate of Kim Brophey’s L.E.G.S. program. According to Kapil, he casually threw out the idea of the tour when he presented at the LEGS in Motion Conference in 2023 and more than 100 people immediately expressed interest.
Ultimately, four tours were planned; I was on the third tour, from February 7-24, 2025. I wanted to share a bit about my experience, for the benefit of those who couldn’t attend.
There are something like 60 million dogs in India (a conservative estimate). And thanks to India’s Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, inhumane solutions like culling are off the table. As a result, there are a lot of dogs around pretty much everywhere you go where there is even a chance of a meal.
Of course, India’s street dogs aren’t simply pet dogs that have been abandoned—although that happens as well. Most of the dogs you might see have been “on the streets” for generations. Because of that, they are more street savvy than pet dogs would be. They know where to look for food. They know how to cross a street (something that took days for the humans on the tour to learn how to do with confidence), and they know how to keep to their own territory. They also display impressive levels of resiliency.
NUMBERS
Our trip took us to four locations in India: Mumbai, Pune, Goa and Delhi. Here are some numbers to consider:
Mumbai is a city of more than 22 million people and some 164,000 stray dogs, according to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, which is the body responsible for public services. Pune, where Kapil is from, is a university town of 7.5 million inhabitants with about 180,000 strays. Goa, I discovered, is not a city but a state and former Portuguese territory. There are about 56,000 stray dogs in Goa, which has a human population of 1.57 million. This all pales in comparison to Delhi, of course, which has a human population of 34.6 million, but no one knows how many dogs there are. Estimates are somewhere between 400,000 and 800,000 dogs in the capital.
BEHAVIOUR
Throughout the tour, we probably saw a few hundred dogs, and it became pretty clear pretty quickly that the dogs generally organize themselves into social groupings and territories. The boundaries of the territories were not always easy to see, except when the dogs were defending them. If one dog or a group of dogs approached or transgressed another group’s territory, we would see plenty of posturing and vocalization but rarely any physical engagement. The behaviours at these times seemed entirely proportional to the situation.
For example, as our group walked through an area with a lot of dogs, we might pass through these unseen territorial borders. As we did so, some dogs may approach us, whether for food or social attention, and tag along with us. However, as we approached the limits of their territory and the beginning of another group’s, other dogs might approach us and then we might see some barking, growling and posturing but inevitably, each group would stay on its own side of the invisible border between the territories.
I also saw a lot of chill doggos! A lot of the time, if they lived in areas where they were able to get enough food, had freedom of movement and were not being harassed by people, they seemed pretty lazy—and their plump bellies backed up that assumption.
Something I didn’t see a lot of was dog-dog play. I definitely saw some, but less than I expected. In younger dogs, play serves a developmental purpose, of course. In adult dogs, I feel like it’s a behaviour we only see occasionally, and only if a dog’s other biological needs are being met. After all, if you’re hungry or hurt, you don’t feel much like playing.
In general, Indie dogs had little reaction towards people, pet dogs and other animals. If you made eye contact with one, they would size you up quickly and decide how they wanted to respond. Many would simply look away with no reaction other than acknowledgement. Some were wary and you could see they were ready to move away if you approached, and some seemed to want to engage. If your body language suggested you were open to more, they might approach and accept a brief interaction—butt scratches were usually quite welcome in these interactions.
HEALTH
The estimated average lifespan of an Indie dog is 3.5 to 4 years. Or it’s 5 to 7 years. No one knows. It’s not an easy life, though, that’s for sure. Rabies and other illnesses—as well as injury—are a fact of life for stray dogs in India.
In pockets of the country there are individuals who have mobilized to collectively provide care for Indies. Sometimes these are structured organizations but sometimes, as I learned from Kapil, it could equally be individual members of a Whatsapp group who organize care and/or distribute food for the dogs.
Dogs that are ill or injured are usually treated on-site, if possible, but if a trip to a veterinary hospital is required, dogs are vaccinated and sterilized before being returned to the location where they were found.
Around the country, there are programs to vaccinate and sterilize more stray dogs to manage the growing population and reduce conflict between dogs and people.
CONCLUSION
This was my first opportunity to really observe street dogs in another country and it was an incredible education. The Indie dogs have really adapted to their environments, but they’ve had hundreds of generations to do that. By comparison, I feel that pet dogs don’t ever have time to adapt to their environment because of the pace of modernization in our world.
For those who may be interested, Kapil will be offering tours again next year.
Kapil Patwardhan, indiadogtour@gmail.com
(All photos by Sheelah Gullion)
Sources:
- Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation
- Population of Mumbai
- Stray dog population of Mumbai: India Today
- Stray dog population India
- Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act (1960)
- Population of Pune
- Stray dog population Pune
- Population of GoaStray dog population Goa
Cultural Impressions of the Role of Dogs
There have been several street dog study trips that I’ve heard about in the last few years: Mexico, Costa Rica, Georgia and Guatemala to name a few, but I do believe the four tours that Kapil organized were the first ones in India. It was also my first time visiting India so I had a pretty huge learning curve of not only the dog culture there, but also the Indian culture, and I saw some parallels I wasn’t expecting.
The Indian street dogs—or “Indies”—seem to spend most of their daylight hours relaxing or sleeping, often in busy areas. They seem completely unbothered by all the activity surrounding them. I’m sure I wasn’t the only tour attendee to wonder at first, “Is this it? Did I come to India to watch dogs sleep on sidewalks?”
At the same time, urban India is a sensory overload of sounds, sights and smells: the people are everywhere. The cars are beeping. Carts are selling chai. Dust is omnipresent and people are going here and there on foot and by car, scooter, tuk tuk and motorbike.
India is famous for its busy streets and I can confirm that it’s a lot to take in at first. As time went on though, I started to see order in the chaos. For example, drivers blow their horns all the time, but it’s rarely a long, aggressive honk. Instead, it’s typically a short, “heads-up”-style beep to inform other drivers of their presence on the road. Basically, everyone is just going about their day and is trying to get on with it. The dogs were the same.
Even when the Indies saw leashed pet dogs or neighbouring Indies passing through or near their territories, they might growl or bark a warning but I didn’t see any conflict between dogs that escalated to the point of bloodshed. Most times there wasn’t even contact. This could be true in other countries as well, but I haven’t got enough experience to speak to anywhere else. In India though, there is a noticeable culture among people of recognizing animals’ place in the world and making less of an attempt to control it and more of an attempt to tolerate it.
Post-tour, I visited two more cities in India—Jaipur and Udaipur, both in Rajasthan—and saw more parallels. In early morning, as I was headed out to look for my North American-style black coffee, I’d pass shop owners washing down the doorsteps to their shops for the day.
Many times there would be a dog nearby waiting for the shop owner to finish opening up and offer the dog something to eat. Maybe some leftovers from last night’s dinner or a bit of breakfast, after which the dog would take up their position outside the shop for the day.
Was the dog there to attract tourists to stop for a moment and then notice the shop’s wares? Or bark a warning if someone looked suspicious? It’s hard to say, but there is a definite culture that both parties understand, and maybe that’s the order in the chaos.
