A Life that kept returning to Dogs - A Passion translated into a Profession

There’s a photograph somewhere in my mother’s cupboard. I’m barely five years old, standing outside our old building. My knees are dusty, my hair is a mess, and I’m smiling at something just out of frame. If you look closely, you’ll see a brown street dog is sitting beside me, calm, patient, like he belongs there. No one remembers his name. But I remember how safe I felt. That’s the thing about dogs. They enter your life long before you realise they’re changing it. 

My sister and I grew up noticing dogs before anything else. While other kids ran past them or screamed, we slowed down and spoke in soft voices. We sat on the floor, shared biscuits, then rotis, then whatever food we could quietly sneak out. 

When we moved to my parents’ house, street dogs became part of our daily routine. Every morning, one would sit near the gate. Another waited near the corner. By evening, there were always eyes watching, tails wagging. Feeding them was never announced. It just happened.  And once you feed a dog, you become part of their map. They remember your footsteps. They wait for you. Sometimes, they follow you — not because they’re hungry, but because they trust you. 

In 2006, Alex came into our lives by accident. There was no planning, no discussion. He just…appeared. One evening, he was there. And the next morning, he was still there. My parents tried to be practical. “If you keep him, you take responsibility.” Alex slept near our feet during dinner. He followed us from one room to another. When someone fell sick, he sat outside the door. Slowly, without asking, he became everyone’s dog. 

Later came Snuffy — a pug — because pugs were fashionable then. We thought we were bringing home a trend. What we brought home was a quiet transformation. My mother, who once worried about muddy paws, started wiping faces, checking bowls and asking if the dogs had eaten. Love crept in without permission. Around 2009–10, we tried kennels. We trusted them. When our dogs returned, they weren’t the same. One had ticks. Another seemed withdrawn. There were no updates. No explanations. That night, we sat quietly and said, “Never again.” From then on, if we had to travel, pet sitters came home. Our dogs stayed where they felt safe. 

Evenings meant walks. Some days, I would step out with one dog and return with

many. Five. Six. Sometimes more. They didn’t bark or fight. They just followed — like a silent parade. People stared. Someone once laughed. Someone else shook their head. I never felt afraid. They walked with me till I turned back, then stopped. As if they had done their duty. 

Time passed. Life moved forward. College. Work. Marriage. Responsibilities piled up quietly. For a while, my parents handled most of the care. And then, one by one, our dogs left. Grief doesn’t announce itself. It sits beside you during meals. It waits for footsteps that never come. It makes you look at empty bowls for a little too long. 

That’s when it hit me — loving a dog means choosing loss in advance. And it’s not a decision one person gets to make. Everyone in the house carries it. 

On paper, my life went somewhere else. Civil engineering in Pune. Then a Master’s degree in the US. A job. And then back to India. Dogs weren’t part of the plan. But life has a strange way of pulling you back to what shaped you.  Lockdown changed everything. The world paused in 2020. Roads emptied. Work slowed. Silence filled the days. 

One evening, Abha and I sat on the terrace, watching our dog sleep. The city felt different. Quieter. Fragile.  We started talking about everything — how many pet parents were stuck, quarantined and confused. Dogs alone in homes. Boarding was no longer optional but necessary. And we realised something uncomfortable — pet care in India had heart but not enough understanding. 

We had started ideating about a place that felt like a YES! A place where dogs could run. Swim. Roll in grass. Be noisy. Be messy. Be dogs. No judgement. No “dogs not allowed” boards. 

During lockdown, we found a space in Karve Nagar. In January 2021, we opened the gates. At first, people came just to see what a dog park or a swimming pool for dogs looks like! 

Visually it was a treat.  I think it was a totally new concept, at least in Pune. Our park soon became an attraction. When pet parents visited, they had a chance to chill with their pets. What we had learnt is that there is a lot of negativities surrounding pet parents in the co-operative societies, or that they have a list of do's and don'ts. A lot of people had problems with dogs being brought on Pune hills as well. So, Tails of the City became the new go-to place for pets and pet lovers.

This experience became valuable. New associations were built. And then boarding was something that picked up eventually. Because it requires a lot of trust to start keeping your dogs at a new place. We have people who have been coming to us regularly for the past 4 years. I can now admit that we have successfully built a sense of security for the pets and their parents. 

People think pet care is cute. It isn’t. It’s physical. Exhausting. Emotionally heavy. Handling unfamiliar dogs requires skill, not just affection. Not every dog adjusted. Some refused to eat. Some fell sick. Some panicked. We learnt to sense their needs. Adult dogs struggle with sudden change. There is vomiting, licking, chewing and dealing with the silence.

Three more trainers joined us in this venture, one of them being my sister. We were now a team constantly upskilling ourselves from kennel cleaning to bookkeeping, from reading about breed behaviour to making nutrition charts and from professional dog training courses to grooming ourselves as entrepreneurs. Learning about the pet product industry, organizing pet events, dealing with parents’ anxiety, managing staff and the list is endless. 

At the end of the day, this place is not about pools or parks or pretty photos. It is about a promise. That if a dog walks through our gate, they will be seen, understood, and held with the same care we once reserved only for our own. That their grief, their fear, their excitement, their silence — all of it will be met with patience. It is our way of saying yes in a world that so often tells dogs no. But now, that love doesn't end with one dog or one house. It stretches across this space, across every wagging tail that runs towards the gate, across every parent who trusts us with their heart on four legs. What began as a child sharing biscuits with a street dog has become a life that, on paper, looked like it was going somewhere else — and yet somehow, it arrived exactly where it was always meant to be.