BEHIND THE PORTRAIT

Yusuf Prahad

Dog walker, Yusuf Prahad, is a well-known face around the Southside. When sharing this portrait, photographer Simon Murphy said: “Apart from myself... Yusuf most likely puts the most miles in around Govanhill. It’s rare not to see Yusuf out and about either with ‘the pack’ or with some other dogs.” The three dogs pictured here are his own – Suzy, Bono and Karra – who all feature on his Facebook page, ‘The Pack’.

This photo was taken as part of Simon Murphy’s ‘100 Rolls’ project. For more, follow @smurph77 on Instagram.

I prefer dogs to people. I spend 99 percent of my time with dogs. I live with three and I never visit anyone’s house if I can’t take them.

People generally tend to let you down – dogs don’t. I find people a lot more stressful than dogs. Most of the folk I have hung out with over the years taught me one thing; watch who you trust.

If a dog does something wrong, it’s usually due to human error. Everyone wants to blame the dog. No one wants to blame the person that created the problems.

A lot of people treat them as children. And the reality is they’re animals, they’re not children. They don’t go off in bad moods, they bite. You have to train them as pups.

All I do is focus on the dogs. I start my mornings at 6am, taking them out for their first walk of the day. They get three walks a day, seven days a week. Even on Christmas.

Apart from my three, I walk about six dogs a day. I don’t walk them in big groups though. It can be dangerous, because if one turns, there’s a potential they all could as well.

When I first took on Karra, she was being abused. She was never socialised with other dogs and she’s very distant. When you give her affection, she acts as if she doesn’t quite understand what affection is.

I grew up in a children’s home, which used to be quite oppressive. But when a new director took over, he changed the home and brought in animals – dogs, goats, sheep, even geese.

If you were taking a dog for a walk, you were allowed out on your own. So I would take a beagle called Kelly out and spend the whole afternoon walking from Dunoon to Sandbank and back. It was brilliant.

Walking dogs gave me a feeling of freedom, but also a bond. That was incredible because there were no conditions attached. In the home and in school, friendships always had conditions. With this dog, there were none.

I was homeless in Glasgow, when I left the children’s home. At that time, I was scared of big dogs because I’d never been near big dogs before.

I was into punk music and, in those days, a lot of punks had dogs. Some of the bands were dreadful – even by punk standards they were bad. So rather than going to gigs, I stayed home with the dogs. After that I wasn’t scared of big dogs.

I became a Muslim. But eventually I stopped practising as otherwise I wouldn’t be able to have a dog in the house [because dogs are perceived as impure in Islam]. My love for dogs became really powerful, as powerful as the feeling I had when I became a Muslim.

Before I started dog walking, I fostered rescue dogs. I’d take the ones that no one else would.

I was brought up in care and I got a chance, so I wanted to give these dogs a chance.

I ended up having my first dog, Eloise, for 11 years.

I keep my dog walking prices affordable. I found that lots of people aren’t able to look after the dog, because of disability or illness. So I thought, instead of you giving up the dog, why don’t you have someone walk it.

When I’m walking in King’s Park, you’ll usually see me being followed by crows. During lockdown, I started feeding the crows there, and I’m addicted to the crows now. They’re smart.

I’ve seen a guy trying to set a dog on Asian kids and another time on an Eastern European guy. The dog wasn’t interested and refused. But it stayed in my memory because it was horrible. I want to encourage people to know about dogs. You don’t have to embrace them, but you shouldn’t fear them. You should never have to walk the streets in fear.

I’ve always embraced what I feared. I used to volunteer at Glasgow Zoo, looking after snakes. I was terrified of snakes, but I learned it was just a matter of always knowing where the head is. These three are my family. The one I never had. And, we’re all doing pretty well.