There’s something about the street dog community that feels like one belongs to a very special, very loving, very intimate family, even if you’ve just met someone.
You can tell just by the work they do in rescue - rehab - fostering - healing or fund raising, that the connection is strong.
Some months ago, my niece Arundhati Krishnan asked me to come to a puppy adoption camp run by Anwesha Majumdar… who is a little buzzing dynamo … she runs an organization Indie Tales of Hope…. And she’s been on The Indie Dog before.
Answesha had gathered squealing puppies from all over the city, who had been brought to the centre of town by the canine squads in that area, so they could get adopted.
It was there I met an adorable puppy named Snow and his human Elvis. Could be this human’s name and my connection to music… or it could be that Snow jumped on me and started kissing me like I was his best friend… but we started talking. I tried not to fall in love with Snow because I have enough street dogs at home.
Elvis told me he belonged to the Electronic City K9 Squad. And since I don’t really go to Electronic City much, I was surprised. It’s a glittering, glitzy, high-tech area of Bangalore, which calls itself India’s answer to Silicon Valley. I didn’t think such areas would have streeties running all over, because it was so posh.
But I was wrong. Elvis and his friends had rescued, fed, spayed and taken care of hundreds of dogs.
The fact that corporate bigwigs in the area… companies like Infosys, Wipro, TCS and many, many organisations didn’t think it was their responsibiity to get involved in street dog issues in the city struck me as odd.
I wanted to talk to Elvis… but he instead told me to go straight to the leader, the boss, the man who made all thing possible for streeties in Electronic City, Paul Goswami.
…
How To Join A K9 Squad In Bangalore
Did you know that the K9 squads were first set up by Priya Chetty Rajagopal a few years ago, because she realized that taking care of street dogs is a local, or as she says a ‘hyper local’ issue.
She feels that if each person who loves streeties dogs tries to help a dog in their own street or neighbourhood… the problem can soon be solved.
There are some 20 K9 squads already… besides Electronic City, there’s Ulsoor, There’s Indiranagar, There’s Frazer Town, there’s Hennur, there’s Jayanagar… the lost is long and it’s close to you.
Type www.bit.ly/SquadJoin and you’ll be taken to a simple and easy to fill form. Once u do that, the admin people will welcome you to the dog rescue and rehab community in your area with open arms and then your life never be the same again.
That’s a very good thing.