BENGALURU: Drive like your kids live here. We love our children and pets. Drive slowly... These are a few of the posters that residents of Ulsoor armed themselves with as they took to the streets on Saturday. Spurred by the death of their furry friend Ruby, who lost her life in a hit-and-run case, the members of Ulsoor Canine Squad (UCS) jumped into action to create awareness about road safety.

“This was the fifth such case since the lockdown began,” says Chaitali Pisupati, a resident of the area who is also a part of UCS. The group was formed in May after another community dog, Cookie, was injured in a similar accident.

The drive saw support from members outside UCS as well, including Ulsoor HWRA VP Mohan Kumar, and Vinod Jacob of Janagraha. “We discussed signboards, reflective tapes and one-way signs. Narayanaswamy, a traffic police personnel, also joined the drive, and assured support,” adds Pisupati. Explaining the benefits of reflective tapes, another squad member, Yasmine Claire, says,

“These can be stuck along pavements or the middle of a road. This way, cars don’t run into dogs sleeping on pavements at night.” One of the main aims of the squad, she adds, is to educate people about the important of community animals and the need to live in harmony with them. 

A brainchild of animal rights activist Priya Chetty-Rajagopal, UCS is one of 17 such localised squads in the city, the others being in Hebbal, Electronics City, Bellandur, Malleswaram, Whitefield, and Indiranagar, to name a few. “The vision was to set up and expand a locality-based group of community guardians who are informed, empowered and motivated to make their human and animal community cared for and safe. These squads focus on areas like neutering, vaccinations, feeding and rescues,” explains the founder of CJ Memorial Trust. UCS members have also pooled funds to distribute some pooper scoopers to BBMP workers for easier cleaning up after animals.