Pet owners wait with their dogs for registration at a government-run animal centre in Chennai, India. Even Indies – the centuries-old native dog recently recognised as an indigenous breed – often bear English names, like the foreign-origin Pointers, Saint Bernards and Irish Setters, highlighting the irony of a wholly Indian dog with foreign names. Generations of dogs with English names, she drolly adds, carry the empire on their collars, well past the days of the Raj. But the arrival of the British in India from the 17th century onward transformed the role of dogs for natives, associating them with a Victorian culture of leisure, pedigree and social status. They began displaying them as markers of refinement, social status and cosmopolitanism, and eventually took them in as household pets, lavishing affection upon them.

Source: The Irish Times January 12, 2026 14:01 UTC