It all started in June of 2017. My daughter, a student of Goa Business School, came across 2 starving puppies with bone deformities that were so severe, they could hardly walk. I started sending food from home and soon, we had a gang of nearly eleven to twelve dogs who would show up faithfully everyday when they heard my daughter’s car enter the campus. The rest is history as you may say.
My daughter completed her MBA the following year but we just didn’t have the heart to stop the food. So between the two of us, come rain or shine, we continued feeding this group of dogs at the Goa University. Now, the road leading up to the university from the village of Taleigao harbours a garbage collection centre and I just cannot describe to you the condition of the dogs who lived here. The adults were all skin and bone and the puppies just skeletons with big eyes, creeping around on the garbage heaps. It broke our hearts to see them. So soon, I increased the quantities of food I was carrying and started stopping at the garbage dump to feed these babies. At that time, I just thought I’d do it for a few days and then stop. But I guess I didn’t realise the compulsion to feed these animals. It became impossible to drive past and see them waiting so anxiously for me, some of them running after the car…..
So that’s my story. We ‘ve been feeding them every single day since then. We have gotten to know each dog personally. They are wizard at making eye contact with you and then you’re lost! Each dog has a name. Bella, Wuiee, Stewart ,Janet ,Bullu, Goyo, Toby, Old dog, Hefalump, Foxy, Duffy, Princess, Rocket, Cowie, Bindy – I’m not going to name all hundred or more here. All the mothers we call Mama. They learnt their names so well, poor babies.
Along with the feeding come the ailments. Secreting medicines into their food. Giving meds to the puppies we were able to catch. Bringing home the ones that were too sick to leave and nursing them back to health.
Getting the vet to come onsite to vaccinate the babies. Actually vaccination against the childhood diseases is the most important gift one can give to a stray puppy. Otherwise out of every litter of 6 or 7 pups, hardly 1 or 2 make it to adulthood. And then there are the road accidents. Hundreds of puppies are mowed down by speeding cars and their poor mothers can do nothing but watch.
We face so much flack from the locals. Abuse, poison being administered to the dogs, their water bowls being broken or stolen, being pelted with stones or hit with a stout stick….the list is endless. My drive to the feeding sites is always spent in silent prayer – Please God please keep them all well and safe.
So along with the satisfaction of knowing that you have contributed towards ensuring that so many dogs are sleeping with full stomachs is also the anxiety you go through when they are sick and the heartbreak when they don’t make it. It’s just part and parcel of a feeder and caregiver’s life. Their lives are in the hands of the Almighty and I guess we are just instruments in fulfilling his wish.