Getting to know the dogs

I recently spent four weeks volunteering at the Visakha Society for the Protection and Care of Animals. As a third year veterinary student from the United States, I spent a lot of time getting to know and caring for the animals at the shelter and in the community. Here are some of my stories of these wonderful animals and the lives they lead with the help of those at the VSPCA.

The first animals that I encountered when I got out of the car on my first day were the dogs. There’s a group of dogs who enjoy relaxing in the shade outside of the gate.  They have the freedom to move inside the gates but some choose to spend their time under the trees or climbing on rocks, always returning for their individual bowls of breakfast and dinner. Our first greeter was a sweet dog with beautiful brown eyes. Every day when we arrived, she’d get up from her nap and come running over with a wagging tail, eager to say hello and get some scratches. She always stayed outside of the gate, but she was always there to see us depart at the end of the day, following us to the car but knowing not to get in. When we took a stroll down the road one day to explore the area, there she was happily running alongside. Not knowing her name, we initially called her TanTan (creative, I know), but later found out that her name is Sota. Look at that face – she’s clearly a very happy dog.

When we first walked through the gate on our first day, there was a loud chorus of barking as all of the dogs announced the strange visitors. Many ran up to us in curiosity, and others soon lost interest and went about their business. As the days went on, we were no longer worth announcing, but we did have our inside greeters as well. We weren’t sure of the names of many of these dogs, so please bear with the names that we made up. We were always amused by Waterdog, who had the right idea about how to avoid the heat. She was also a love and when she saw us arrive, popped right out of her bath and wiggled her way over to say hello and giving us a morning shower.

Mangey Face (who we later found is named Clint Eastwood) is an adorable bouncy guy with a big smile on his face. He loved to follow us around and would sometimes lie outside the cat wards waiting for us to come back and play with him.

Cookie is a very sweet little girl. She was abandoned at the shelter because one of her back legs is paralyzed, so she was dropped off as a puppy and bottle-raised by the staff. Her leg doesn’t stop her from following us on our cat rounds, running around the shelter grounds, rolling in the dirt, and being a loveable lapdog.

After we greeted these dogs and many others each morning, we walked through the ABC ward where the street dogs who have recently been spayed/neutered or are awaiting their turn reside. They were usually paired up in twos in their kennels and cuddled up with their housemates. Some were very timid, hiding in the back, but others readily approached us with wagging tails and many kisses.

A big hello each morning was always to Goofy, who awaited us outside of the office where we put our belongings. She, like many of the dogs in the shelter, had self-assigned boundaries and only stayed within a certain region, but was always there to see us in the morning, at lunch, and in the evenings. She would sit on the stoop outside the surgery preparation room as we approached, eagerly wagging her tail. After some hello hugs and kisses, she’d follow us into the office and often try to steal my socks as I changed into my working shoes, or find some paper to shred if we didn’t take it from her quickly enough. Many of the dogs in India have a very different demeanor than dogs in the US, but Goofy struck me as much more of an American dog. She seems like the type who could chase tennis balls for hours and run on the beach, and it would be amazing if she could find a home. She certainly doesn’t have street skills like many of the dogs do, but is safe and happy in her stretch of the shelter grounds with people to lick and good meals each day. She was definitely one of the harder dogs to say goodbye to when it was time to depart.

More posts to come with my experiences of the many other shelter animals as well the work that I did at there and in villages near Kindness Farm, VSPCA’s other facility about 90 minutes away.