Journalist Divya Dugar and her family invariably turn heads when they travel as a unit. It's not every day that you come across an interracial couple—her husband Olivier Telle is French—with three dogs and a nine-month-old baby, hopping aboard long-distance trains. Since 2016, they have been on 54 rail journeys across the country. "I can safely say that Tigress, Marco Polo and Pari are the most travelled dogs in India," says Dugar, who works for a German and Russian television network and is based out of Delhi.

Eleven-year-old Tigress happens to be her first rescue. "All three came with their own issues. Tigress was abandoned and had a broken leg. We found Pondy, Marco Polo's mother, in a garbage dump and she followed us home. Later, Marco was born. Pari, the youngest, was the most abused of the lot. She had a broken skull and jaw when we rescued her, plus tick fever. She was scared, anxious and not trusting. It took us a lot of time to work on them." Pondy's passing in 2016 made the couple realise the woefully short lifespan of dogs. "We wanted to give them the best we could. And, that's when the travelling began." They decided on trains since renting a car was turning out to be an expensive proposition and air travel was a no because pets find it stressful travelling alone in the hold of a plane. Their research on the Indian Railways' pet policy threw up little information. "It took us a month to figure how we could do it without glitches. The Indian Railways may not publicise it, but they are quite pet-friendly."