Loki D’Souza is quite the star on Facebook. With 92 friends, this champ regularly posts updates about his life on Facebook, with some posts garnering him over 70 likes! Indeed, while some of us don’t even manage to get more than a dozen likes, this one and half year old Labrador from Mapusa sure knows to work his way around social networking.
“Ever since Loki was a pup everyone wanted to play with him and would visit our house especially to see him. This gave me the idea of creating a profile for him so that people could actually keep track of him and his activities,” says Sheldon D'Souza, Loki's owner. “ Now, if there aren't any recent photos or posts on the profile, my friends tell me 'hey haven't seen your pet on Facebook for a while', which is funny since I am the one who actually operates it.”
And Loki is not the only one. Pepper Potts D'Cruz has been part of the Facebook craze for almost three years now. Her owner, fashion designer Falon D'Cruz, admits that the whole profile thing was done on a whim by her close friend. “We were quite excited about him when we got him and my cousins abroad were keen on pictures and that sort of thing,” she recalls. “People in fact sent in friend requests which was amusing to me. It was a bit silly but all done in good fun.”
Tyson Kharangate Neurekar is not far behind in terms of popularity. With 86 friends, this five year old Boxer from Margao, however isn't as active as he once used to be. “It was something I started for fun. My friends used to interact with him (meaning me of course) and so did some of my family, including my mum. I don't use the account very often now,” says Malavika Neurekar, his owner.
Yes, it's a bit crazy, admits Tahir Noronha whose dog Kia (a chocolate labrador) has an Instagram account. “I use Instagram for photos of my life, but my dog is really photogenic so I also collect photos of her life and upload those on to her account. The initial idea was to have an account for my work and photos of me and another for my dog.” However, Noronha laments that the response hadn't been as great as expected. “Although I have quite a few followers, very few people follow Kia,” he says wistfully and then adds, “ Her Instagram account is called Doggiekia. Please follow!”
Daisy Viola Gomes on the other has over a hundred friends on Facebook. This feisty cocker spaniel even got married to one of her Facebook pet friends. “Since many of our other friends had started adding their pets online especially on Facebook, my brother and I also decided to create an account for her about four years ago,” says Denzil Gomes, her owner, adding, “She is much loved by all and has a lot of other pet friends too.”
And while some people think a special account for pets is ' lame', Neurekar states that she doesn't take the comments too seriously. “I understand that not everyone is a dog person but for me Tyson is everything. He came into my life when I was experiencing a lot of heightened emotions as a teenager and through the years he has been a constant.” Noronha adds, “It may be silly but it's certainly not lame. There are plenty of animal accounts that have tons of followers. If I want to see dog pictures I can just go to the pet account and see only pictures of the animal.”
A thought that is echoed by Gomes, “Those who find it lame don't have awesome pets especially dogs that are more like family members and not just animals. Daisy was gifted to me by my best friend before he passed away so she is kind of a remembrance of him. But haters gonna hate anyway.”
