Cospheres

4.5 years ago, during peak COVID, me and my husband started feeding a family of stray dogs 400 meters from home. One of them had a twisted leg and I guess that’s what made us empathize with this particular group of strays and soon they became like family and a regular part of our routine, come rain or shine.

During the beginning of October, we noticed that her twisted limb was badly bleeding. Having just returned from a long weekend vacation, I put it off for the next weekend. Finally on Saturday 7th October when we took her to the vet, the diagnosis was pretty scary. The wound was infected with maggots and gangrene was beginning to form. The vet prescribed a couple of sprays and tablets but he strongly recommended that the ideal solution is to amputate the leg. I was immediately upset at the thought of cutting off the leg of a voiceless animal and worried about the cost of surgery. I told the vet we’ll go for the medication option & see how the wound heals. 3 days later when we took her for a follow-up visit he insisted on the same option. I was constantly worried about Kunti and decided to take a few videos of her and check in my rescue circles. That is when I was given the contact of Dr Pradeep (Curative Pet Hospital in Whitefield) by Ms Lakshmi, an experienced rescuer and one of my go-to people for advice in times of crisis.

Dr Pradeep was a real messiah for me. Just a 5-minute phone call with him was enough to call me down and be confident that Kunti will be fine with surgery and that’s what is best for her, more so because she’s always been using only 3 legs to walk. The other angel in this story is a lady who lives down the road from Kunti. She has always told me that she’ll always be there whenever there’s a requirement for funds for the streeties that I take care of. This time I was hesitant since the amount required was more than usual. She did not bat an eyelid before taking care of the entire surgery cost and 3 out of the 10 days boarding cost.

The third kind hearted person who has a role to play is Mr Ravi who not only let and continues to let Kunti stay inside his compound ever since she was injured but also kindly took me and Sujit in his car both to drop Kunti for surgery and to pick her up.. from the hospital 15 kms away.. he also feeds Kunti and her family regularly and contributed monetarily as well in her treatment.

We took Kunti in for surgery on 14th October, Saturday. For me, it was a really anxious couple of days as we had to take her for a blood test before the surgery to make sure her parameters were okay to do the surgery. On the day of the surgery also I was pretty nervous though Dr Pradeep kept telling me it was a simple surgery and that she would be fine. The surgery was successful and 10 days later, on Dussehra, we brought her back from post-operative boarding to her territory. Seeing her in the car during the return journey was an absolute testimony to how smart these voiceless animals are. During the journey to the hospital, she was so restless and even fell from the car seat and went off under the front seat, it being her first journey ever in a car. During the return journey, she was such a bundle of energy because seeing familiar faces made her immediately realize she was going back home.

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