ARUNACHALA Animal Shelter - Love in Action
It was, in the end, a typically Indian encounter. I’d heard from a friend that in the town of Tiruvannamalai in Southern India, a man was going around feeding the street dogs, and had established a rescue shelter for treating and rehabilitating them. On the same day as I heard of this shelter, I saw the man I’d been told about 3 times that same day. He was riding around on his scooter and throwing food to the dogs while simultaneously assuring and interacting with them. The dogs recognized him and would wag their tails as he approached.
The shelter, which I subsequently visited, now has some 100 or so permanent residents who, from being too maimed and crippled, can never be released back to the streets or be fostered out to local homes. One of the dogs I saw at the shelter was blind and so brain damaged it would yelp as it awoke and blindly run headlong into the enclosing fence, and then just stumble around and around in circles. Many others dogs were coming and going, and starved horses, injured cows and birdlife as well are also treated and rehabilitated now by the shelter. You can often see Leslie riding around town on his scooter, hand-feeding and interacting with the street dogs of an evening, something he continues to do every day.
After viewing a video on the shelter’s website called ‘Postscript; The Power of Love’, I was moved to visit the shelter, and there I saw first-hand the incredible sight of dogs in such very poor condition being loved and healed by the vets and staff with such tenderness that, even in the dogs’ desperate conditions, they were playing and interacting with the humans with varying levels of trust. Apparently the hardest cases are handed to a ‘specialist’, whose heart is so open that only he can gain the trust of the animal and begin getting close to them.
After I’d been sitting and watching and patting those dogs that came up to the fence for a while, and after talking with one of the two vets, the founder of the shelter, Leslie, arrived. The staff who had been feeding some new-born puppies by hand stood, pups in arms, as Leslie repeatedly kissed and murmured assurances to each of these puppies. He then went into the dog’s enclosure where a small German Shepherd-type dog lay motionless not responding to any of the other dog’s activity or to any human contact. Leslie immediately got down on the ground with this dog and embraced it where it lay. After a few minutes, and following questions as to the dog’s arrival that day at the shelter, he informed the vets that this dog was grieving, was either lost or had been abandoned, but anyway was somehow traumatized from being separated from its human family.
He then requested a staff member to pay close attention to this dog, to give it as much love and human assurance as possible. He and I then talked for a half hour or so after which he showed me around. What I saw was not only a functional and professionally run animal shelter, but an extraordinary outpouring of love in order to alleviate the suffering of homeless dogs and other animals, and whose response is often a return of happiness, health and trust in a human. Only one dog apparently has ever been ‘put down’, and this one was mad with untreatable rabies.
As I was leaving the shelter I looked down at the grieving German Shepherd, still inert, but now cradled in the lap of a staff member as he sat on the floor gently stroking the animal’s body. They had been like that the whole time I was there, and for who knows how long after. I came away feeling very moved by the selfless dedication of Leslie and the staff there, that in response I made my donation and I now write this email. I ask nothing of anyone, by the way; this is just my way of expressing something deeply felt.
. . .
I have just had breakfast with Leslie who I met by chance in a cafe here, along with another man, Ken, who produced and also showed me the video I mentioned above. Ken is also an inspiration who gives to the shelter in many ways through website production, marketing and newsletters, promoting the shelter on the internet via Facebook and his own website, drool.com; as well, he has donated two Royal Enfield Bullet motorcycles to the staff. One of them, Vishwa, a man Leslie describes as a ‘hero’, uses the Bullet as a recovery vehicle, often travelling miles at any time of day or night with an assistant on the back to capture, as gently as possible, an injured, frightened and/or otherwise starving animal from any situation with fearless courage, to then return, animal in the arms of the pillion to the sanctuary of the shelter. Vishwa then uses all his resources and networks to foster rehabilitated animals into safe and loving new local homes.
So, having now expressed my response to that experience for you, I will leave you with it. Maybe my experience won’t translate through this letter or through you watching the Shelter’s video, but I have truly witnessed what can only be described as something akin to Grace in action, and for me it has been and still is one of the highlights of my trip here. May it also be as profound an experience to you as it was to me.
With deep gratitude,
Rob Duczynski
Hobart Tasmania Australia
It was, in the end, a typically Indian encounter. I’d heard from a friend that in the town of Tiruvannamalai in Southern India, a man was going around feeding the street dogs, and had established a rescue shelter for treating and rehabilitating them. On the same day as I heard of this shelter, I saw the man I’d been told about 3 times that same day. He was riding around on his scooter and throwing food to the dogs while simultaneously assuring and interacting with them. The dogs recognized him and would wag their tails as he approached.
The shelter, which I subsequently visited, now has some 100 or so permanent residents who, from being too maimed and crippled, can never be released back to the streets or be fostered out to local homes. One of the dogs I saw at the shelter was blind and so brain damaged it would yelp as it awoke and blindly run headlong into the enclosing fence, and then just stumble around and around in circles. Many others dogs were coming and going, and starved horses, injured cows and birdlife as well are also treated and rehabilitated now by the shelter. You can often see Leslie riding around town on his scooter, hand-feeding and interacting with the street dogs of an evening, something he continues to do every day.
After viewing a video on the shelter’s website called ‘Postscript; The Power of Love’, I was moved to visit the shelter, and there I saw first-hand the incredible sight of dogs in such very poor condition being loved and healed by the vets and staff with such tenderness that, even in the dogs’ desperate conditions, they were playing and interacting with the humans with varying levels of trust. Apparently the hardest cases are handed to a ‘specialist’, whose heart is so open that only he can gain the trust of the animal and begin getting close to them.
After I’d been sitting and watching and patting those dogs that came up to the fence for a while, and after talking with one of the two vets, the founder of the shelter, Leslie, arrived. The staff who had been feeding some new-born puppies by hand stood, pups in arms, as Leslie repeatedly kissed and murmured assurances to each of these puppies. He then went into the dog’s enclosure where a small German Shepherd-type dog lay motionless not responding to any of the other dog’s activity or to any human contact. Leslie immediately got down on the ground with this dog and embraced it where it lay. After a few minutes, and following questions as to the dog’s arrival that day at the shelter, he informed the vets that this dog was grieving, was either lost or had been abandoned, but anyway was somehow traumatized from being separated from its human family.
He then requested a staff member to pay close attention to this dog, to give it as much love and human assurance as possible. He and I then talked for a half hour or so after which he showed me around. What I saw was not only a functional and professionally run animal shelter, but an extraordinary outpouring of love in order to alleviate the suffering of homeless dogs and other animals, and whose response is often a return of happiness, health and trust in a human. Only one dog apparently has ever been ‘put down’, and this one was mad with untreatable rabies.
As I was leaving the shelter I looked down at the grieving German Shepherd, still inert, but now cradled in the lap of a staff member as he sat on the floor gently stroking the animal’s body. They had been like that the whole time I was there, and for who knows how long after. I came away feeling very moved by the selfless dedication of Leslie and the staff there, that in response I made my donation and I now write this email. I ask nothing of anyone, by the way; this is just my way of expressing something deeply felt.
. . .
I have just had breakfast with Leslie who I met by chance in a cafe here, along with another man, Ken, who produced and also showed me the video I mentioned above. Ken is also an inspiration who gives to the shelter in many ways through website production, marketing and newsletters, promoting the shelter on the internet via Facebook and his own website, drool.com; as well, he has donated two Royal Enfield Bullet motorcycles to the staff. One of them, Vishwa, a man Leslie describes as a ‘hero’, uses the Bullet as a recovery vehicle, often travelling miles at any time of day or night with an assistant on the back to capture, as gently as possible, an injured, frightened and/or otherwise starving animal from any situation with fearless courage, to then return, animal in the arms of the pillion to the sanctuary of the shelter. Vishwa then uses all his resources and networks to foster rehabilitated animals into safe and loving new local homes.
So, having now expressed my response to that experience for you, I will leave you with it. Maybe my experience won’t translate through this letter or through you watching the Shelter’s video, but I have truly witnessed what can only be described as something akin to Grace in action, and for me it has been and still is one of the highlights of my trip here. May it also be as profound an experience to you as it was to me.
With deep gratitude,
Rob Duczynski
Hobart Tasmania Australia
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