Do it yourself and don't teach me, were the seven angry words, mouthed in 2007 by a dog show breeder that set 16-year-old Tejas Kamalkar on his journey of conserving and breeding native sighthounds. Today, Kamalkar, 27, is not just a proud owner of 40 native dogs in his hometown Kolhapur and four in Mumbai, a foster parent to 56 rehabilitated-adopted dogs of miscellaneous breeds and a quotable authority on breed standard for the Caravan hound. His field research on the differentiation between the Caravan, Mudhol, Pashmi and Alaknoori breeds has been factored in by the Kennel Club of India, published in the Indian Kennel Gazette and also acknowledged by the global canine network Federation Cynologique Internationale.

When the dog breeder hit out at Kamalkar, the latter was a mere Std XI student armed with only an inherent understanding of purebred dog temperament. He knew the native breeds of Maharashtra — skinny-looking, hardy, fit-for-hunting sighthounds — were rapidly disappearing; they were being adapted to modern-urban habitats and most importantly, they were being crossbred with foreign breeds like Salukis. "I couldn't digest the fact that people wanted the racy ruggedness and resilience of the native breeds, but preferred to superimpose it on a massive impressive built of a foreign breed. The two cannot and should not be desired in a single breed," he says.