Contributors

Thursday 22 November 2012

Sugary Sweet


Sugar is at Let's Live Together's adoption camp today at Coles Park. Sugar & Raisin are a part of a litter that was at a local ABC center. They are waiting for their forever companions to take them home. Yet, they have to fight it out in a world that loves to buy breeds, even though dogs in the end are all the same, sweet,lovable companions.

Sugar is active & lovable. She understands basic commands like no, sit & sleep. :) She's very affectionate and steals the heart of every foster parent she's met.
We hope someday people get over their obsession with buying dogs and just chose to adopt. there are thousands of dogs regardless of their breed that are waiting for your attention. Why buy more when you already have so many?

The Great Indian Dog Show - 2012

On the morning of 15th of April 2012, a bunch of youngsters were scurrying around in the last minute preparations for a dog show. Routine? Nope. This dog show was unlike other shows. It was exclusively for The Great Indian Dog, the Indian Native Dog, The INDog, and a bunch of other names that we don't feel is good enough to describe these beautiful breeds. For more information on the INDog, please refer to http://www.indog.co.in/.
With absolutely no background in conducting dog shows, whatever was lacking was made up in terms of passion & love for the Indian dog. There were engineers, doctors, students, homemakers, web designers, & NGOes who all came together to arrange this platform to make some noise for the Indian dog.
We always had lamented the fact that conventional dog shows had no place for the Indian dog. A beautiful breed that inspite of having wonderful homes still evoked a response of "oh! you have a stray! " at the vet's clinic. Something had to change. Was the term Indian equivalent to stray? And if it wasn't then what were we, who could tell the difference, doing with the knowledge.
Somebody had to go out there and tell people that Indian dogs don't exclusively belong to the streets or slums. They were as good as any other breed, probably better equipped with their natural genetic makeup without interference from inbreeding.

The team took off to Chennai to learn from The Wacky Mongrel Show that is conducted by Blue Cross. The BC team from Chennai welcomed us enthusiastically and said "Hey trespassing is welcome. Go out there and tell everybody that the Indian dog has arrived".

We decided to call our show "The Great Indian Dog Show" to make the greatness a little more obvious and literal.
The big day arrived mid summer and we rolled out our Indian Dogs in Style.
Bangalore had some beautiful people who strutted their Indian dogs and their love for them and it penetrated language, class & other social barriers. The only thing that stood out was The Great Indian Dog.
For images click on the link. http://www.thegreatindiandogshow.com/gallery.html

We had extensive media coverage that we credit completely to Ms. Saleela Kappan, Red Communications. She did a brilliant job of not just helping us reach out to the audience that was present at the venue but lakhs of people got wind of the show thanks to her efforts. http://www.thegreatindiandogshow.com/media.html

What's a show without the participants?

All our entrees were winners that afternoon. They all were decorated with medals that said "proud to be an Indian Dog" .However we had some special awards for some special ones. http://www.thegreatindiandogshow.com/winners.html

Human companions shared their experiences, some witty, some emotional and some very uplifting with a wonderful rescue that turned into a happy ending for both the human & the dog.

Popular Kannada cinestar Mr Jaggesh graced the event with his wife and gave a very moving message to all those who were present, particularly to the media. His wife, Mrs Parimala, also spoke about her love for her rescued dogs and said they were not dogs to them, only children.

We also had other NGOes that communicated their message to the public -  Samabhava, Midnight's children and Vanamitra.
There was also an adoption camp held by Let's Live Together that got beautiful homes to rescued Indian pups at the venue.

The show was conducted in association with an NGO, Sarvodaya Sevabhavi Samstha.

We all went back home exhausted and exhilarated that night, overwhelmed with the adulation & response we got for the Indian dog.

But we did not know that our journey had just begun. We continued to network as a team and finally made the decision to form an independent association that would solely focus on branding the Indian dog the right way,the way it so deserves.
Currently we are not affiliated with any NGO and solely work with them on need basis.

We are gearing up for the 2013 edition of The Great Indian Dog Show with the same enthusiasm that we started out with and probably a little more confidence. See you at the show.