Surrounded by a cluster of Hindu flags, the Temple in the Sea, one of T&T's main tourist attractions, stood serene and still near the shore in the Gulf of Paria at the Waterloo Cremation Site. Four small fishing boats bobbed gently in the water nearby. Birds sang in the trees in the park area onshore. About two dozens mangy stray dogs frisked and played with each other in the cremation site, running all over the compound. One climbed onto the concrete table, leaving out the three benches, and sat down.
Another lounged on a long Ministry of Tourism bench. Some did their numbers on the lawn. The others surrounded vehicles that pulled into the car park expectantly. These stray dogs have earned the love of several people, who faithfully feed them every afternoon. As Anjanie Chattergoon's red car pulled into the site, they all ran behind it.
"They know the car to a T," Chattergoon, a 58-year old mother of two, of Claxton Bay, told the Sunday Guardian. She opened the trunk of the car and took out large aluminium trays of rice, pet meat and chow, which she put on heaps on the road. The dogs ate hungrily and then dispersed. "They pick out all the meat and leave the rice," Chattergoon said. She said a group of girls at Carillion's office nearby, where she works, and a few boys, who help her feed the dogs, said the animals don't like chow either. For the past three to four years, Chattergoon has been getting up at 3.30 am every morning and cooking four pots of food. She feeds all the stray dogs she could find in the area. "One living in the cane field here. I stop and mornings and feed she. I just now feed three on Carillion compound."
She feeds another set hanging out at the Claxton Bay Fishing Port, too.
Stray cats have not been left out either. "I took a cat from here to rehome him at Claxton Bay but I haven't seen him for two nights. I cry too bad." Asked why she does it, she replied: "I have a love for the animals. Maybe it's the Lord Jesus Christ." Chattergoon, who attend the New Testament Church in Point-a-Pierre added: "It have too much stray dogs. You see a stray animal looking starving, you give it food." Asked if she helps poor people too, she said, "I do help the poor." How often? "On a regular basis," Chattergoon said.
Feeding the animals for ten years
Shortly after Chattergoon pulled out, Nadira Hakim pulled into the cremation site, accompanied by her mother and niece. Hakim, a guidance officer at Couva West Secondary school, feeds the same dogs every afternoon. They ran behind her vehicle but didn't stay too long at the chow she placed in heaps on the ground. Hakim said they will eventually eat it, dismissing Chattergoon's claim that they didn't like chow. "Is the kind of chow you give them. They prefer Alpo." And why does she feed the dogs? "People drop these dogs here, sometimes as puppies.
They don't have anyone to look after them." Hakim took two of the dogs home and said her whole family loves dogs. "We're dog people. We've been feeding dogs for ten years now." She said her brother, Nick Hakim, a gardener, knows the stray dogs at the cremation site by name. They collect donations to buy dog food and dip into their own pockets, as well, she said. And they also feed people, too. Hakim also reminded the Sunday Guardian of the nature of her job. "In the day is children I see about and on evenings is animals. "I don't forget the two-legged people," she said, referring to people.
Councillor: Dogs a health hazard
Councillor for the area, Allan Seepersad said he always makes a request in public health meetings at the Couva/Tabaquite/Talparo Regional Corporation to have the dogs removed. "They're a health hazard," he said. "But the problem is we don't have a dog catcher vehicle to catch the them and take them South. "We have to borrow one from Chaguanas or Princes Town and sometimes they are using theirs." Seepersad further noted: "When we do get a dog catcher vehicle and go down there, the dogs don't be around." Seepersad said he was told that a White lady from Maraval and a man from Orange Valley also feed the dogs.
