When you live close to, and frequently use, a highway you get used to seeing accidents. Overturned trucks, smashed up cars, firemen hosing down the road (euw). A motorcycle once hit the taxi I was in, going into a 180° spin before landing on top of its two, unhelmeted riders. They got up and walked off to a chorus of honking from angry commuters with no patience for road blocking collisions. Needless to say, it is not unusual to also see the animal victims of speeding vehicles lying beside the highway. Most of them either mangled and bloody or bloated up in the hot Mumbai sun.
Four days ago I was on my way to the shops when I spotted one such victim. Although going past at some speed, I did notice there was neither blood nor bloating on this dog, lying up against the highway divider. As I sped away the thought struck me that the unfortunately animal might not be dead. To be completely honest I kind of hoped it was.
But dammit, now there was doubt in my mind. What if the dog was alive and like every other commuter that must have passed it that day, I left it there to die a slow painful death.
Several meters up the road I made a u-turn to check on the dog. I miscalculated and passed the little furry brown pile before I had a chance to slow down, but I did see it raise it’s head. Not dead then. Silent curses. Okay, now I really felt obligated to do something, images of all my past dogs flitting through my mind – what if it had been Muffy? U-turning again, I pulled up alongside the dog, which I could now see was small, female, and had no external injuries. As gently as I could I lifted her and put her on the backseat of the car. The poor thing tried weakly to bite me, but didn’t really have the strength.
Now what? I called my sister-in-law, who used to volunteer at the Bombay SPCA to ask if there were any animal shelters in my area that could take an injured stray. No, she said, I would have to take it to the BSPCA hospital in Parel, about an hour away. With an injured dog now lying on my backseat I really didn’t have a choice.
The BSPCA hospital is on a wooded piece of land in the middle of a busy business district, where it has been for the last 130 years. With limited funds and resources, they treat about 10000 injured animals a year. Dogs, cats, pigs, goats, cows, even pigeons, none are turned away. After signing a form declaring the dog I picked up as a stray, and making a voluntary donation, my little passenger was seen too almost immediately. She was scheduled for an x-ray the next morning and given her own little ‘cubicle’ to stay in. The BSPCA staff was kind and reassuring.
Since then I’ve been back a few times to check on the little doggy. She is recuperating, the hospital estimates it will take at least 2 weeks for her injuries to heal, and she is much more responsive than when I first brought her in. She wags her tail and drags herself towards me in a way both heartwarming and heart-wrenching when I speak to her. I don’t know yet what I’ll do with her when she’s completely healed. Normally the BSPCA return strays to where they were found once they’re recovered. With millions of stray dogs and a minimal budget there’s really not much else they can do. The Indian ‘pariah’ dog, the breed of most strays, can live up to 15 years when looked after. The average for strays is five.
And so one act of conscience leads to another as I canvas everyone I know in the city to try and find a home for a sweet dog, to save her from the dangerous life of the streets. I know I’ll be doing both her and her new owner a favour as pariahs make wonderful pets, not prone to the allergies and genetic frailties of imported breeds. Fingers crossed this story has a happy ending.
