Social cause Archives - Obsessivemom

I’m not a dog person, not even an animal person at all. They’re
messy and smelly and hairy and so demanding. And I’m talking about pets.

Add to all of that, a basketful of fleas, a bucket of
grime and a bunch of scabs and wounds and you have the strays. They really have
no chance of making a case for themselves.

So why am I doing a post on them?

Well that’s precisely why.

Nope this is not a sympathy post, though of course they
deserve that and much more. However this is not as much about them as us. In our country, we find them everywhere, right?

So what do we do about them?
– We can ignore them (for how long, though?)

– Chase them away (they’ll only come back)

– Wait for the municipal corporation to do something (which
may take ages or not happen at all).

Even if the corporation does step in, all they can do is get
them sterilised and vaccinated and release them back. They cannot be killed unless they have rabies. At least that’s my
understanding of the law. If I’m wrong please do correct me, dear readers. There just aren’t enough dog shelters to take care of them all.

Dog lovers might suggest we adopt a stray. Not being
one myself I can understand how that might not be an option for all of us.

However,
here’s someone who found a humane yet practical option. Meet Kalpana. She
runs a library close to where I live. I’d watched her feeding these dogs and
hated the thought of navigating my way through a bunch of them to get to my books.
However, over the years I’ve learnt to see her point and their’s too.

Another friend takes a snooze

That’s Kalpana with ‘Tipu’

Kalpana looks after some eight dogs of our locality. She got
them sterilised and vaccinated. She feeds them everyday. The vaccination and sterilization is way more important than the feeding.

The canine friends have become an integral
part of the library and can be found snoozing among the books or happily
welcoming book lovers who drop by.

Once they know they have a regular supply of food they
turn less aggressive and more friendly. Come to think of it I’ve never as much
as heard a growl from any of those at the library.

What a compassionate solution, this is! Don’t you think?

In parts of Delhi the stray population went down drastically due to similar initiatives taken up by animal loving citizens. Go here for that story.

PS: If you’re a regular here this post might sound familiar. Yeah.. a piece of fiction I did recently was inspired by strays like Tipu.

This post is done for ABC Wednesday – a fun initiative for bloggers.

After ages the sun shone today. I’m just going to snooze the day
off.

Yawn!!! Life’s good.

Not long ago things were different. I’d hang around the shops near
here. My favourite haunt was the tiny library sandwiched between the fish shop
and the bakery. The lady who runs it is really sweet. She always had a smile
for me and a pat, fleas and all. Occasionally she’d toss me a biscuit.

I’m a friendly kind of fellow but not everyone appreciates that. Till I was a pup I was petted by lots of people. But as I grew up I sensed a change. People grew suspicious. And if I got too close they shrank from me. How that hurt!

Do you know we are cursed with an amazing sense of smell? Yes
cursed. Have you imagined what it would be like to smell fresh fish from the
fish seller? Or soft sweet buns from the bakery? Great, you think? Now imagine
them on an empty stomach. Pure torture.

Once I hadn’t had anything to eat for two whole days. By the third
day I was desperate. I hung around the fish shop hoping for a few scraps.
Nothing. I watched people carry home fresh bread and hoped they’d toss me one.
No luck. I rummaged in trash cans. All I found was plastic bags and rotten
vegetables.

Believe me when I say I’m honest guy. But that day, something
happened. It was the hunger. It blinded me, took over completely. I saw a lady
carrying a bagfull of fish and that was it. I took off with it.

The fish seller gave chase. Weak as I was, I was caught within
minutes. As blows rained on me I thought this was it. This is what’s called ‘to
die a dog’s death’. Then, suddenly, the blows stopped. I opened my eyes to see the
library lady.

She took me home, bathed my wounds and gave me food. That was the
sweetest bread I’d ever had. And she talked to me – man to man!! ‘I cannot keep
you here,’ she said. My heart sank. But then she gave me a magic collar. You
know what that means?

It means I ‘belong’.

Now, I sit proudly in front of our
library, which is home to me, and no one dare touch me. I welcome everyone with a hearty wag of my
tail. At night I curl up on my tiny rug outside the library. I never go hungry.

Life’s good.

Wrote this for Blogaada’s WOW.. but was a few minutes late, I guess!

In any case I wanted to do this as it is inspired by a real life ‘library lady’ who adopts street dogs despite the objection of many residents around here.