On July 29, three dogs were poisoned and a pregnant one attacked with acid inseparate incidents. Only one of the poisoned dogs survived; the other succumbed to the poison and injuries. On March 15, a Bengaluru woman killed 8 puppies and on the same month, people were shocked to see a video where a man stabbed 3 dogs and one puppy outside South Delhi Metro Station. The story doesn’t end. The torture video of a medical student dangling a puppy from the top of a terrace and then flinging it over sent shock waves through animal activists this month. And comes another. The video of eight youngsters throwing three live puppies into a bonfire by holding on to their limbs in Hyderabad a few days ago. While pet lovers have raised concern, the torture of animals seems never-ending. Makes one wonder: Are animal welfare charities helping people who call up for help in rescuing pets? Here’s what happened four months ago.
Jograj Singh, a pet lover from Chandigarh, was ecstatic when he wrote to Maneka Gandhi volunteering to join People for Animals (PFA), an animal welfare organisation mandated to rescue and rehabilitate sick and needy animals; it runs shelters and provides other services for animals. He was accepted by Maneka Gandhi, who is its chairperson. Little did he know that he was in for bitter disappointment the very next day.
On March 5, Jograj Singh found an injured puppy on the side of a street. One of its forelegs was broken and the other paralysed. Finding the address of the nearest PFA was easy enough: he got it from the official website: Sector 11, Chandigarh. He rushed over with the pup but to his surprise, he couldn’t find any PFA office there. He then took the dog to another office in Sector 25. He was once again disappointed; he was told that the office had been surrendered to the government.
Unable to bear the dog’s distress, Mr Singh located another PFA office in Dhanas, a village away from the city.
“I could find only one person in the office in Dhanas. He gave the puppy an injection and asked me to fill a form and leave the puppy there. But I wanted a doctor to see the dog immediately. He asked me to go to a hospital that was 5-6 km away. By the time I reached the hospital, it was raining heavily and to my shock, the hospital was locked,” said Jograj Singh. Carrying a yelping puppy was gruesome enough. But what Jograj saw in the hospital was equally awful.
Several animals were left out in the yard vulnerable to the driving rain. There were several dogs and one emaciated and injured horse. There was no one to take care of them. Singh waited for three hours but no one came to the hospital.
“Seeing the horse in pain was one terrible experience and I was helpless.” It wasn’t the first day as PFA volunteer that he had expected. He went back to the PFA office in Dhanas and took back the puppy.
Singh took the dog Aina (named after a cat he rescued a few months earlier) to a private clinic for treatment and kept her for some time but she did not survive.
This was not Singh’s first experience with PFA. Earlier, when he was working with his friends in helping injured animals, he had sought PFA’s help several times. He said, “They always avoid us, giving silly reasons. Of the six times I called, I got help only once, that too after making a scene.”
Volunteers involved in various animal rescue operations have a mixed response about PFA’s efficiency. Animal rescue volunteer RavichandraKadiyala from Chennai said, “Though my experience with PFA is minimal, I have rescued a Spitz dog successfully with their help. They helped us indirectly in getting prospective adopters.”
Another pet lover, Roshni, is unhappy with both PFA and Blue Cross. “Though people say that Blue Cross comes for help as soon as we call, my experience has been different; three instances, all disappointing,” she said.
At the same time, a rescue volunteer who would prefer to stay anonymous, said, “I have been rescuing animals for about 16 yrs now in Thrissur and PFA’s unit is not too active. Basically, there are very few organisations in Kerala and only a handful of people involved in animal welfare. Speaking against PFA, it’s better to stay anonymous. In Kerala, PFA is active only in Trivandrum and Kollam. The rest of their units are not active at all.”
Newindianexpress.com tried to contact the Chandigarh PFA unit and the phone numbers given on the site were out of order. We even tried the Pune office and finally got in touch with the Bangalore PFA unit, which was a wildlife rehabilitation centre. When asked about the rising complaints against PFA, Naveen, a volunteer-cum-rescue manager based in Bangalore, said, “Many are unaware about what certain PFAs are specialised in. The Bangalore unit rescues wild animals. But whoever contacts us for rescuing domestic animals, we have always given phone numbers and addresses of other animal rescue organisations.
“People have a preconceived notion that if they call any organisation, the authority is responsible for whatever they ask for.” Naveen also pointed out that they rescue several wild animals 24/7 and have even spent 2-3 hours rescuing a single animal. “It’s easy for people to blame us but what we are doing is something great which they should appreciate. The Bangalore unit is not government funded even if some other units are funded by government to run shelter,” adds Naveen.
Their Facebook page also has several complaints against PFA. Here are some of them:
