CUTTACK: At a time when the rising population of stray dogs and cats has become a problem in many areas of Cuttack, a local woman and her family have set up a shelter home where injured stray animals are being nursed back to health.
Saini Mishra, a 28-year-old animal lover and former employee of Infosys, has set up Susrusha For Furry Friends at CDA which the strays and abandoned animals can call home. She has been rescuing injured stray dogs and cats, neglected or abused pets and orphaned or abandoned puppies and kittens and providing them care at Susrusha.
During her plush job at Infosys, Bengaluru, as project finance manager in 2019, she volunteered for an NGO where she learnt to rescue and treat stray and abandoned dogs. “That was actually where my interest was,” she said. Having left her job in 2020 due to the pandemic, she began channelising her energy into helping the voiceless animals.
She returned to Cuttack and opened the shelter for distressed animals on a piece of government land measuring 4,000 sq ft at Laxmi Nagar lane-3 at CDA. CMC gave her permission to operate from the land in October 2021. “We started taking in abandoned dogs from 2020. I am really happy to have a family which fully supports me in my mission to take care of the street dogs,” she said.
Currently, her animal shelter has 56 dogs including 11 foreign breeds abandoned by their owners, and seven cats including two Persians and a cow. The cow was also abandoned by its owner after it was infected by foot and mouth disease.
She spends nearly Rs 40,000 towards meeting food and treatment expenses of the animals every month and the money is mostly met by her father Sarbeswar Mishra who works with India Post, brother Satyajit who works with a finance company and a few Good Samaritans. Her mother Manjulata also assists her in taking care of the animals.
After the injured dogs and cats heal, she gets them vaccinated for rabies and the male dogs are sterilised. She then leaves them back at the places from where they were rescued. “If the animal is handicapped or old, we keep it in our shelter,” Saini said. Daily, she gets five to 10 calls daily to rescue injured strays.