Services and facilities for dogs and dog parents are booming in Kochi

Discover the story of Kochi's dog park, where pet owners and dog lovers come together to socialize and have fun with their furry friends.

Alexa, Germy, Simba and Zimba meet every Sunday at Rajendra Maidan. They run around the park, playing together while making new friends. Alexa is a Siberian Husky, while the other three are beagles. If not for the dog park Sundays, they would have never met. Four months since opening, the dog park has gained its set of regulars. 

Getting the space, which is under the Greater Cochin Development Authority (GCDA), for four hours every week is a huge win, says Dona Denny, one of the people who campaigned for the space. Dona along with Aishwarya Nandilath is co-founder of Pawsome Party, Kochi’s annual ‘pet festival’. The dog park is an outcome of Pawsome Party’s first edition. 

“People started asking when the next one would be. We did not want to scale it down in order to be able to host another edition of the event in the same year. But the community of dog parents wanted a space to get their pets out, which led us to think of a dog park,” says Dona. Initially they considered Central Park, Panampilly Nagar, but when that did not pan out due to reservations residents around the park had Rajendra Maidan came up as the next option. It took several rounds of meetings, with the support of Hibi Eden, MP, for the park to become a reality.

“It was for the best. There is more space at Rajendra Maidan, there are gates so no question of runaways,” she says. The four hours weekly are publicised so that those who do not like dogs can avoid the park for that duration, we don’t want to inconvenience anybody,” Dona adds.

Besides being an opportunity for pet owners to hang out with their pets, the dog park is an opportunity for dog lovers who don’t have one to spend time with some canine friends. “Those who cannot keep pets can interact with them. It is therapeutic just being in the company of dogs,”  Dona says. It is also an opportunity for pet owners to interact with each other. Software professional Kiran Correa and his wife bring his two year old dog, Germy, to the park every Sunday.  “I can tell that he looks forward to it! It is a wonderful opportunity for the dogs to make ‘friends’; the bonus is that we, pet parents, get to interact with each other and exchange notes!” says Kiran. 

The Sunday dog park hosts events such as Halloween, Christmas and a New Year parties too. It also organises adoption drives (of Indies) in association with Animal Rescue Kochi, an NGO. So far the dog park has facilitated 80-odd adoptions.

Like everywhere else during the pandemic, Kochi saw a rise in people getting pets, mostly dogs. As the canine pet population has increased, the city has seen the growth of a vibrant ecosystem. Services and facilities for people to pamper their pets are many. If in the past one depended on the handful of veterinarians, today there is a 24-hour pet hospital in every part of the city. Most of the hospitals have teams of doctors, laboratories for tests, high-tech equipment and operation theatres which even conduct C-sections. These also offer boarding facilities.