KOCHI: Imagine yourself in a metal cage. Once a day, some cold meat is pushed from under the bars of the cage. Twice a day, a man smelling of detergents and steel rails comes to check you. Sometimes a needle to stick into you. Sometimes a strange plastic apparatus to drop some liquid into your eye. The eye burns. Sometimes it is like fire coursing though you. But you love him. Because he is the only one who visits you. Twice a day.
It is in damp and squalid conditions of the backyard unlicensed breeders and laboratories like these that people like Chinthana and Anoopa put their body and soul into. ‘Guardians of the voiceless’, people call them. “Tchah!,” says Anoopa with a wry smile, “I don’t know what I would do if I ever saw a laboratory, probably set fire to it.”
I just nod my head, looking at the scores of beagles running around. They have been freed from a laboratory just a week back, given their shots, neutered and are up for adoption.
The friendly ones, the playful ones. As yet unbroken, perhaps too young. They’re the first to go. A child bends over one enthusiastically, “Not the number four ninety seven, Ma, his name is Bolt!” Natasha stands by, chuckling gently. A canine behaviour specialist, she understands the glee of the kid. But she is nervous. Many thoughts rush through her head, “No, you’re bending over too much, don’t crowd his face, tail tucked in, hind legs stiff, attention somewhere else, no, don’t approach from the rear.” But she gently coaxes him, shows him what should be done.
Only if thirty go today, thirty more can be released. The boy has made his choice. “Congratulations!” says Awanti. A photograph, and off goes another beagle. Into a home. Food and a warm bed. The team sighs.
Born and bred in laboratories and damp, dark backyards, these dogs are not your everyday pooches. Everything is alien, scary and new. The human touch, the sound of a door, the clang of spoons on metal, anything at all can set off a panic attack. “Tsk, even the sound of a Bullet going by, and my Sasha starts to panic,” chuckles Chinthana. “It is difficult.” says Smita, adding, “I have to hold them close, rocking them slowly while whispering into their ears. Sometimes it takes hours before they calm down.” She is right, I know, having witnessed it the last few days.
“But we cannot give up,” Sanjana chips in. “If not us, who?”. She knows the ugly side of the pet parenting world, being involved in the day to day running of CUPA Second Chance, an abandoned-dog shelter and a Mama to nine abandoned pooches herself. She helped me adopt Gunner, an abandoned German Shepherd, found on the fields of a veterinary hospital. Suffering a heat stroke, a raging tic fever, clumps of tics hanging on his body, severely malnourished and on the point of death, it was as CUPA’s able doctor’s hands that Gunner got a second shot at life. A few months of staying home, eating well and slowly finding his self confidence, Gunner is on his way to making a full recovery.
Three thirty in the afternoon, the team is hungry, tired and thirsty, but thirty seven beagles have gone home today. Most days are not this great, so the team gathers around to celebrate. A win, no matter how small, needs to be savoured. They look forward to the next thirty. Another day, another challenge.