These are the dogs of Bikaner, Rajasthan, India. (And yes, those are camel carts and bullock carts and Toyota SUV's in the background.)

I remembered them after my friend Caveat introduced me to the beautiful Cujo Chuggie and I read about his encounters with various religious sorts.

The dogs of Bikaner are a wondrous sight to behold at around 9 in the morning and 6 in the evening every day.  These are street dogs, homeless dogs, if you will.  Yet every day, hundreds of them, perhaps thousands of them, line up along the main commuter drags, and wait patiently, quietly (!), to be fed. 

And the commuters, pedestrians, others mostly on bicycles, and many from their car windows, throw the dogs bread, chapatis, parathas, rice balls, dry vegetable curries, paneer (home-made cheese) nuggets, which the dogs happily eat.  Note that the dogs are vegetarian!

And therein lies the clue to this unique phenomenon, according to a Bikaneri friend.  Bikaner (and much of Rajasthan) has a large population of Jains (Jainism is a major Indian religion). Jains believe in the sanctity of every living being, and will not knowingly cause them any harm. Thus, of course, they are strict vegetarians. They also believe in the positive virtue of doing good to other living beings when they can, thus the feeding of the dogs.

As an aside, also in Rajasthan are a group of nature worshippers called the Bishnois.  Their belief in the sanctity of all living things extends to plant life as well.  They are some of the fiercest protectors of wildlife in India (many species are endangered) and were recently in the news when they successfully prosecuted a big shot Bollywood actor for killing a protected blackbuck.