Lutch­min Ramdeo, 73, smiles as she feeds the stray dogs and pi­geons at an open yard at the end of Per­se­v­er­ence Road in Ch­agua­nas, next to one of WASA's com­pound.

For just over a half-cen­tu­ry, it has be­come some­thing of a dai­ly rit­u­al for Ramdeo, who now be­come well known by mo­torists and oth­er com­muters as she sets out every day at 6 am and every evening as the sun sets to feed the an­i­mals.

Ramdeo said she nev­er re­alised how pop­u­lar and ad­mired she was among the peo­ple. "Every­where I go peo­ple tell me, aye you're the woman who does feed the dogs and birds. I does just laugh."

Asked why she has tak­en on this role, the hum­ble and shy woman said, "This is not a bur­den you know, this is a bless­ing and I be­lieve that I have got­ten plen­ty of bless­ings for tak­ing care of the stray dogs and the pi­geons.

"You know how many dogs I have here?" she asked. There are more than a dozen dogs and their young ones.

"They are my own. The an­i­mals pray for me, I am sure."

She said she wakes up every day at 3 am to cook for the dogs, the pi­geons and her grand­chil­dren. "I ac­cus­tomed to get­ting up ear­ly, in my work­ing years I had to get up and go ear­ly in Port-of-Spain where I worked in San­i­ta­tion. Since those days peo­ple know me for feed­ing the an­i­mals. I don't re­ceive a pen­sion but I spend lots of mon­ey to buy food for the dogs, I don't know how but I sur­vive. I am just blessed."

Ramdeo said her two sons and grand­chil­dren al­so love to feed the an­i­mals on oc­ca­sions when she is out or not feel­ing well. "But most times is me out here and I feel so hap­py and at peace and the dogs and pi­geons are hap­py too. An­i­mals should not be al­lowed to suf­fer or go hun­gry bel­ly. They have life just like us."

She said her wish was to one day see oth­ers tak­ing time out of their busy sched­ules to do the same. "It have bless­ings in this. Trust me, I'm a liv­ing ex­am­ple. When you start to do what I do you will see trans­for­ma­tion in your lives."