PET PROJECT_Caravan Magazine_Sept 2016

PET PROJECT

PHOTOGRAPHS BY KARAN VAID

Pomeranian Gurgaon, Haryana January 2016

Rottweiler Bengaluru, Karnataka November 2015

Pet Project The strange world of Indian dog shows PHOTO ESSAY / HOBBIES PHOTOGRAPHS BY KARAN VAID

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karan vaid spent much of his boyhood, in the 1970s and 1980s, being shepherded to dog shows all around India by his dog-enthusiast parents.

Decades later, Vaid, by then a photographer, found pictures from those trips while digitising old family albums. “I decided that I should revisit these shows and see what was going on,” he said. Thus was born the Indian Dog Show Project, a series that captures scenes from dog shows held across the country, from Chennai to Amritsar. Vaid has been working on it since October 2013.

When shooting the series, Vaid wanted to avoid taking the “classical documentary approach.” He was struck by how many dog owners “loved the camera on them,” and how some enjoyed quasi-celebrity status “at the top of the dog-show fraternity.” This, he said, inspired him to assume the role of a paparazzo, and to take pictures “in the genre” of entertainment photography. His photographs, shot through with a voyeuristic but affectionate

tone, depict obsessive handlers, quibbling judges and sinewy dogs competing for fame and fortune.

Vaid quickly became familiar with the dogshow subculture’s internal politics. “Judges are respected and most contestants treat them like rock stars,” he said. But, sometimes, dog owners—who can be “very passionate people”—do not hesitate to “vent their anger (however misplaced) by confronting judges during the show.” He also witnessed the seedy underbelly of these events, and remarked on how, especially in north India, they “sometimes attract unscrupulous puppy-mill breeders who camp just outside the venues, trying to sell the popular breeds of that state.”

Even while Vaid witnessed all of the dog-show world’s oddities, he became one himself. “I have become a bit of a permanent fixture at these dog shows,” he said. “Sometimes people come up to me and ask me about what I am doing, and don’t usually understand why.”

Pug Ludhiana, Punjab November 2013

Pakistani Bully Kutta Patiala, Punjab November 2014

Judge Jaipur, Rajasthan January 2014

Miniature Pinscher Dehradun, Uttarakhand December 2014

Great Dane Kolkata, West Bengal January 2016

Beagle Ludhiana, Punjab January 2016

Japanese Akita Dehradun, Uttarakhand December 2015

Cocker Spaniels Kolkata, West Bengal January 2016

Great Danes Chennai, Tamil Nadu September 2014

Staffordshire Terrier Amritsar, Punjab December 2015