How Ratan Tata ensured his dog 'Goa' didn't scare a visitor

Ratan Tata has a special kennel built for stray dogs at the global headquarters of Tata Group. (Image credit: ratantata/Instagram)

Industrialist Ratan Tata is known to be a dog lover. The chairman emeritus of Tata Group has a special kennel built for stray dogs at the global headquarters of Tata Group in Mumbai.

Among the dogs at the Tata headquarters is “Goa” who spends all day at Ratan Tata’s office as he attends meetings.

Karishma Mehta, founder and CEO of photo blog Humans of Bombay, recalled the time she visited his office and her encounter with Goa.

Mehta, who is terrified of dogs, had an appointment with Tata to interview him. As she waited to meet him, she spotted the dog sitting in the chair next to his. She then whispered to Tata’s executive assistant, Shantanu Naidu, informing him about her fear of dogs.

Ratan Tata happened to overhear them and asked if everything was alright.

“A little smile formed on Mr Tata’s face as he turned to the dog in his chair and spoke to him, like he would to a human being and said, ‘Goa, she’s scared of you, please be a good boy and sit!’ He then turned to me and said, ‘Come!’” Mehta wrote in a LinkedIn post.

For the next 30 to 40 minutes that Mehta spent in Tata’s office, the dog did not go anywhere near her, she said.

In November 2020, Tata, who turned 84 in December last year, had shared a photo with Goa, calling him his “office companion”.

Responding to one of the queries on his Instagram post, he wrote: “He was a stray puppy when he got into my colleague’s car in Goa and came all the way to Bombay House. Hence the name Goa.”