Perhaps a forgotten story - The story behind this faded photograph taken in 1995: How Chennai’s Street Dogs Won Their Freedom from the Lethal Chamber to Liberation and Life!

The incessant heavy rains in the last ten days threw back memories of the NEM of 1995 for me. And hence I thought I should share this story with you.

This photograph was our way of sealing our victory- in the days when there was no social media to amplify our voices.

This might be a long post, but as a fellow Chennaite, I feel compelled to share a piece of history that changed our city forever for our dogs. This photograph surfaced a few days ago and reopened memories I have carried silently for 30 years.

This photograph is from October 1995 - Marieen and I standing in front of the Lethal Chamber at the Pulianthope Dog Pound. Behind our smiles lies a battle that defined the future of Chennai’s street dogs. It was a fight drenched in blood, sweat, and tears- two brutal years that tested every fibre of strength we had.

When my first posting with ICAR brought me to Chennai in 1993, I witnessed something unbearable: the yellow dog-catching van roaming the streets, picking up street dogs who were then taken away to be killed by electrocution. For over 72 years, the Corporation had used this method, killing nearly 20,000 dogs every year.

Back then, there was just one other animal welfare NGO in the city. When I expressed my anguish, the secretary of this NGO gently told me, “We at least manage to give the dogs a good meal of milk and bread before they are killed the next morning.”

That single sentence pierced something inside me. It became the seed of a battle that consumed my life. It was clear to me that death and incarceration can never be the solution in any civilised society. But at that time, few imagined otherwise.

In those first years, Marieen and I would travel by auto rickshaw to the pound. She would go inside, pleading with dog catchers to spare a few dogs and pups. I waited outside the Lethal Chamber, unable to bear the sights within.

Our turning point came when we discovered that the real authority to make a policy change was the Special Officer of the Corporation, not the Commissioner. And that one man, Shri Abul Hassan, IAS - the Special Officer of Chennai Corporation in 1995 -changed the history of animal welfare in Chennai. I salute him!

On 23rd September 1995, he visited the Pulianthope pound with us on our request. What he saw inside -the electrocution chamber was beyond horrific, a mound of freshly killed pups, a screaming black dog dragged to be electrocuted. He needed no convincing. In that very moment, he declared:

“From today, electrocution will stop in our city.”

With those words, a seven-decade legacy of cruelty in our city -a system built by the British in 1932, finally ended.

But the victory wasn’t smooth or immediate. A war followed. We faced unimaginable resistance from within the system, especially from two officials in the lethal chamber -who had overseen the killings for decades. The pound was hostile, unsafe, and deliberately obstructive. Monsoon floods, no electricity, crime-ridden surroundings, we fought through everything.

We worked day and night. We cleaned the filth-ridden rooms ourselves. We started by doing 5 ABC surgeries a day, while they continued bringing in 100+ dogs daily, hoping we would give up. At night, with the help of sympathetic dog catchers, we released many dogs back to their original locations to prevent overcrowding and death.

Slowly, painfully, courageously, we stabilised the ABC programme. There was no turning back.

We requested space to care for sick and unfit dogs and the Corporation gave us an old British cattle depot in Choolai near Pulianthope.

The Pulianthope dog pound - once steeped in suffering and death -became a place of healing and freedom.For 20 years, from that very ground that had witnessed millions of deaths, we built and ran a humane, successful ABC programm - until 2014.

My days often began at the Pulianthope pound, then my job at ICAR, then evenings at the Choolai shelter tending to old and mange-ridden dogs, and finally the nights at our Redhills shelter.

By 2009, Chennai’s incidence of human rabies dropped to zero. The city transformed, not because of killing, but because of a well-implemented, compassionate ABC programme.

The message is simple, yet profound: Killing is never the solution. ABC is.

And above everything, freedom matters more than food for street dogs. Anyone who has lived with them knows this truth: a lifelong shelter is just another way of killing street dogs. Street dogs cannot survive incarceration.

Thank you for reading this, and thank you for walking alongside us for more than three decades. The voiceless have always had you by their side and may this your kindness to them comeback to you in God's choicest blessings of joy, peace and prosperity.

With grateful regards,
Dr. Shiranee Pereira