About Us | Stray Buddy

About Stray Buddy

We facilitate self-managed community initiatives to humanely manage dog populations, eradicate rabies, and reduce perceived dog nuisance in India.

Who are we?

We are a group of individuals with hands-on experience in managing community dogs collectively, involving those representing residents welfare associations as well as colony animal caretakers and feeders.

We promote living in harmony together. Our stepwise and methodical approach has resulted in a puppy-free and rabies-free colony in South Delhi, where community dogs are well fed and taken care of by citizens.

We developed practical tools and collated resources based on good practices of other colonies that we would like to share with others. We encourage every neighbourhood in Delhi (and the rest of India) to work through a similar positive and systematic approach to control their free roaming dog population, eradicate rabies, and reduce perceived dog nuisance in their community while acting within the framework of the law.

Our aim is to co-exist and promote well-being for all creatures, while respecting both human and animal rights.

Tell Us Your Story

Our Vision

As enshrined in the Constitution of India, we envisage compassionate citizens who coexist with community animals in their neighbourhood. The free roaming dog population slowly declines, rabies is eradicated and perceived dog menace reduced to a minimum due to positive and sustained collective action.

Our Mission

We promote and facilitate that every neighbourhood or village in India has an active group of self-managed local residents who have a positive approach to coexistence between humans and animals and who collaborate with other residents and relevant stakeholders to implement a methodical community dog management plan.

Core Values

We respect nature and all living creatures.
We acknowledge that animals are sentient beings. We have compassion for stray animals. We promote coexistence between humans and dogs. We encourage positive action instead of negative reactions.
We operate within the framework of law.

What our caregivers say

The dogs in our colony wear reflective collars. This is safe for them at night and it also gives a signal that these dogs are taken care of. I ordered these collars from a social enterprise called “Pawsitivity”. Their motto is to save our street dogs.

Ira

New Delhi

I participated in the RWA youth quiz about stray dogs during lockdown last year (July 2020) and it was so much fun! We did a funky dog photo contest and cartoon drawing. I made a combination of superman and our community dog Choco. I won the title “winner of the most artistic cartoon”.

Tasmai (11 Years)

New Delhi

Dogs are being fed by volunteers in our colony. Four designated feeding points were marked with official sign boards provided by the Animal Welfare Board of India. More feeding places are being identified, so that dogs don’t get into each other’s territory and cause disturbance and commotion.

Rajlakshmi

New Delhi

Endorsements

“I am so happy to see Stray Buddy promoting harmonious coexistence of people and community dogs. This is the best way to deal with dog-human conflicts in our cities. This tool is user-friendly and can be replicated by whoever wants to work on resolving these issues.”

Anjali Gopalan, Managing Trustee, All Creatures Great and Small (ACGS)

“Stray Buddy was inspired by an inclusive process to manage dogs in our colony (H-Block Saket, South Delhi) that was initiated in 2017. Our holistic approach led to better understanding of resolving human-dog conflicts. I am happy to see that “the H-block way” is now being replicated in other colonies as well. The concept of a stakeholders group as initiated by H-block, Saket involving RWA representatives from other blocks in Saket, AWBI, SDMC, police and NGO’s brought together all stakeholders under one platform for information sharing and finding ways to work towards a common objective in society. In our efforts guidance and support from the Animal welfare Board of India has been significant.”

Lakshmi Santhanam, President, Residents’ Welfare Association (RWA) H-Block, Saket, New Delhi

“This is a good initiative. If community dogs are sterilised and taken good care of, the burden on overfull and understaffed shelters is reduced. It would also prevent emergency rescues of neglected and ill-treated animals.”

Geeta Seshamani, Vice president, Friendicoes SECA

“I am happy to be associated with the initiative to find ways to coexist with strays and to make them an asset to our society. So much of hard work being done to encourage and teach people to be more compassionate towards strays.”

Anantmala Potdar, President Residents’ Welfare Association (RWA), D-Block 61 to 135, Saket, New Delhi

“I am delighted to endorse the Stray Buddy website as timely and the need of the hour. Strays are our friends, our community buddies, our companions, because dogs always respond a hundred-fold to the smallest act of kindness shown to them. Once we understand their nature and language, we will not be afraid even when they bark or run towards us. Let Stray Buddy become the platform for RWAs to collaborate with feeders for the benefit of residents and for strays to find loving happy communities to treat them as part of the family.”

Norma Alvarez, Chairperson and Trustee, Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations (FIAPO)

“When people have learnt to co-exist with elephants in parts of Western Ghats and with leopards in parts of Rajasthan, why not live in harmony with dogs in our neighborhoods? Dogs are in fact sociable creatures. But many people are afraid of them and unaware of their ways. Stray Buddy promoting harmonious co-existence of people and community dogs can help people to get over this hurdle and do wonders to reducing the dog-human conflict.”

Vasanthi Kumar, Co-Founder & Managing Trustee, Stray Relief and Animal Welfare (STRAW) India

“When the Stray Buddy pilot program was introduced to us, the N-block Saket RWA already had an Animal Welfare Committee. The methodical approach to create dog records helped us to decide on priorities in managing the stray dog population in our block. Since then the dog population was stabilised by achieving 100% sterilisations and puppies were adopted. We are now working towards 100% vaccination rate. I can recommend RWAs to collaborate with feeders and caregivers using the 5-step process as promoted by Stray Buddy.”

Sharad Narula, Vice- President, Residents’ Welfare Association (RWA) N-Block, Saket, New Delhi