Mumbai: It took two days, several calls for help and a 10-hour journey during heavy rains on Monday night to get emergency medical aid for a community dog from a remote village near Mangaon in Raigad district.
The five-year-old dog living near the village of Channat had a bone stuck in his throat from the past two weeks and was unable to eat nor breathe properly. He had been whining in pain since the three days then. An animal lover and rescuer Suraj Kadam, 24, had been to the village for a wedding and got to know from a friend about the dog.
From then on, started Kadam’s efforts to get treatment for the animal. “I made calls to around 20-30 people from different NGO’s of Mumbai, but did not get help. Many cut my call after hearing the issue,” he said. Kadam, who works with an NGO, got in touch with Poonam Samthani, an animal rescuer and feeder through ACP in the Anti-Corruption Bureau Sudhir Kudalkar, an animal lover. They found that the nearest veterinarian was 40 km away and agreed to come to see the dog, but only once.
Anticipating that the dog would need follow-up care too, they decided to arrange a vehicle from the village to Mumbai, where the animal could get admitted in a hospital for treatment.
Samthani, also a professor, and part of Mumbai United for Strays (MUFS), said that there were no vehicles available from the remote village and one had to be finally arranged from Mumbai. “The pandemic situation had made things worse. We all from MUFS pooled money and decided to send a vehicle,” she says.
The roads being full of potholes and there being heavy rain all through the night, the journey was making slow progress, says Kadam who travelled with the dog in the vehicle. The journey took ten hours instead of the usual six due to the many halts they had to take due to the rain. The dog was admitted to In Defence of Animals NGO on Monday morning and is undergoing treatment.
