A special place in hell

5 days ago my wife rescued two little female pups in the middle of a rainstorm, on a country road near our village, at 7:30pm, from the middle of the road. Neighbors explained that they had been dumped there at around 5pm. Naturally, they did nothing.

In this weather, weeks old pups will die of exposure within 24 hours or get eaten by an opportunistic predator. This, of course, bothers no one, except for a tiny minority of people in India.

Dehradun has 30,000 to 40,000 feral dogs running around. In Nainital, there are roughly 11,000 dog bites per year, which caused the Uttarakhand High Court to order the following 2 years ago.

1. Count your wild dogs

2. Identify the areas that they live in

3. Build shelters for them

4. Capture them, sterilize them and either keep them in shelters or release them back to the area of capture

5. Districts that did not comply would be considered in contempt of court

So what was the outcome of this? Exactly nothing, the order was ignored. Just window dressing I guess...

My wife remarked that there seem to be a lot more bulls on the roads than there used to be, quite a few. Young ones are abandoned at an earlier and earlier age and left on the roadside. Since no one is cutting them anymore, they proliferate and will continue to do so.

Cows of course are more valuable since you can make money from their milk, so they are seldom left out to fend for themselves. Supervision, of course, is an entirely different matter.

I have been here for 16 years now, and I have come to love India and its people, but I hate the way they treat animals here. Its awful.

My wife used to spend some of her summers with her Ob/Gyn doctor grandmother in Khandwa. Her granny was famous for receiving a President's medal for her studies in the use of Turmeric in obstetric procedures. She used to get called out into the countryside at all hours of the night and day. She would call for a local tonga and my wife would pester her to accompany her, no matter the hour. But, one thing she could not stand was to see someone beat an animal, like the horse or bull towing the cart. She would make her grandmother pick another tonga and driver who did not beat.

One day one of the rejected drivers stated that "I beat my wife, why wouldn't I beat my animal?' Nuff said and never forgotten either.

So, back to the little foundling girls.

We had them checked by our vet. They are about 6 weeks old, of an indeterminate breed and quite healthy now. The issue is that no one wants a female, which in a family setting is stupid. They are gentler, more loyal and affectionate, and once fixed, entirely easy to take care of. But they are females, so no one wants them.

The issue is that we have a 48kg Rottweiler who lives upstairs with us, while I keep the girls on the ground floor, out of his way. He has seen them from upstairs and exhibited a mild curiosity but no frenetic barking, etc..

Once I clean up after them 4 times a day, I thoroughly clean myself up since I am not sure if they have distemper and I don't want him infected. He is current on all of his shots, deworming, etc.. but I take no chances with our Jojo, so bleach water bath on everything the little ones touch for now.

I am offering to pay all vet fees and medications for year 1 and for their sterilization at the appropriate time. It is also a way for me to visit them and see how they are being treated, since I will insist on taking them for their check-ups myself. So far, no takers, but I cannot keep them. Jojo would feel very jealous and possessive and I am not sure what he would do to them, so out they must go, somehow. 

But unlike the bastards that abandonded them to die, these will go to a home, no matter how long it takes.

Want one, preferrably two? I would like to keep them together.