MEMOIRS OF SOME RESCUED ANIMALS

I have been a pet owner for more than a decade now. I owned many dogs, cats that I still have with me. Besides, I used to have fishes and birds as my pets. Now, when I look back and retrospect into my journey as a pet owner, I wonder what I did for them. Am I able to live with being true to myself? Am I truly able to do something for these voiceless creatures with shiny eyes and wagging tails? This reminds me of the horrors of my journey as a pet owner working for their welfare.

It was in 2014 when a fawn-colored Labrador was abandoned amidst the grope of trees beside a busy traffic road. She was famished, her skull was V- shaped and her paws were swollen due to the maggots eating them away. The dog could not walk properly; it stared helplessly in the busy road as if pleading for some solution. She was brought home when a person called and informed us. The initial few days were spent in treating her with proper medication and saline was given to make her live somehow. As her health revived, she started to eat rice and chicken hurriedly but vomited the contents right after having them. It took a while for her to get accustomed to joyful ways of living. The area around her neck still has the mark of the belt to which she was tied for a prolonged period. She used to shiver at the sight of sticks and jumped happily with a ball in my hand. Her name was Cheeni or sugar.

Chhota or the small one (the name changed) was a gigantic Great Dane who was supposed to weigh around 54-90 kg however; he was famished to the extent of being hardly 20 kgs. His condition was almost the same as Cheeni except the fact he was free of maggots. All the bones of his body were visible starting from V-shaped skull to the number of rib bones in his ribcage to the pointy pelvic bones to the number of bones that lead to the formation of his tails. Even a stray dog lived a better life with rotten food from the garbage to fill his stomach. The dog died peacefully in his sleep.

Mishti or the sweet one was an old-aged white spitz rescued in the same year as Cheeni. She was saved from being crushed by vehicles on a busy road. She had epilepsy attacks with white frothy fluid out of her mouth. Her left eye had become cloudy white due to cataract. On the same side of her front paw, it’s better to call it her armpit had a tumor which gradually grew in size and took the turn of cancer with blood gushing out of the place. In her last days, she needed her owner to be beside her and taking care of her. Unfortunately, it did not happen, the person left her at a time when she needed him the most. She lived with us for a month and left for her heavenly abode. Rado, my sleeping side pillow, the one I cuddle and choke with every possible hug and plant kisses on his cheeks every time too was a rescued dog. He was abandoned along with his five siblings at the age of about a day old. The only fault of the mother is to leave her child for a while to search for food. Yes, you guessed right, Rado is a stray dog. We did our best to survive all the puppies but Rado was possibly the one to live, the rest died due to lack of mother’s milk and affection. Rado too lived with his almost bald pink and warm body. I still enjoy his way of taking stuffed toys in his mouth and spreading its white flesh everywhere.

Glory, a blind pet cat was rescued from being killed by the stray dogs. She had sinusitis as well as kidney problems. She came to our house on 3rd December, 2016. Her eyes used to be filled with layers of cough, which were cleaned several times a day. After a year, her eyes melted. She was on medication for her kidney problems but she was a hand fed adult cat. She will scratch the adult dogs with her paws if they ever try to harm her or run away from the house (God knows how) if she feels the cool air near the main door of our flat. She loved my version of Breakup song from ‘Ae Dil Hai Mushkil’ daily and lived until 12th February, 2020.

If I start to write about my experiences as a pet owner, I wouldn’t stop doing so. These are some of the instances, which numbed me and didn’t let me sleep possibly for hours at night. It is never wrong to have pets in your house, but it is important to be a responsible owner. The peer pressure and the solution to loneliness cannot be a pet if the dogs and cats are not looked after well. It is as if you have a newborn baby and you are meeting their every single need. So, think before owning a pet. A lot of stray dogs and cats are tortured daily; they were either beaten up or met with an accident. In some cases, they are murdered by the inflicting blows of sticks and strangled to death. The haters on grounds too harass the people who are working for the welfare of the animals as if they are the one responsible for increase in animal population. Though the non-governmental organizations like Ashari* are working tirelessly for the animals, there is a need to have compassion towards animals in people's hearts. There is a need to accept these loving creatures while they are taking shelter in a bus stop to prevent them from drenching in rain. *the name mentioned with the permission of the NGO

In the picture above, you can see Rado sleeping on his bed while I click his picture silently. As a stay at home Pet-Mumma , I highly believe in kali nazaar therefore, I won't add his picture, only a glimpse. Here , he is sitting with his favourite person on Earth , my nine-year old cousin Tatai.