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Animal Welfare and I Part V

During one of the adoption camps, I met another lady who is as passionate as I am and as practical as I am not. My Animal welfare journey would never be complete unless I speak about this lady. Radhika Deshpande and I became friends in no time. She and I would have long talks about ABC Drives and other rescues. I felt comfortable to tell her things that I otherwise wouldn’t have spoken to anyone, to seek her advise about animal welfare or otherwise. We made a good team.


She also supported me when I needed fosters for the pups that I would be looking after.

We did several rescues together and then one fine day we left the group for good. For once, we also considered starting our own NGO. Since we had understood the hard work it takes to built a team and a financial support that would be needed to run day to day activities, we called it off. It was or rather even today is a wise decision.

The Dilemma that I faced was about interfering with the nature or choosing to reduce population. During our discussions, I could sort my thoughts and choose a lesser evil in form of ABC Drives.

Radhika would take an appointment from CCC and we would together go looking for dogs for ABC Drives. I joined as many drives as I could, there were times when she did the drives by herself. In the year 2021, we did about 1 drive every month and sent 139 dogs which included 86 females for sterilization. 86 sterilized females meant avoiding birth of some 800 - 900 pups! (86 females delivering an average of 5 pups twice a year). That was a huge achievement.

Together we did an activity at Symbiosis college for awareness about animals along with few of our friends from the community. It was a fun day. 

She also handled several other rescues like those of goat, horse and a cow. What impresses me more was her telepathic communication with animals.

Her pet Simba the Second was instrumental in me setting my other venture of “ToRi Kitchens”. Simba wasn’t aggressive but he wasn’t friendly either. The way she tamed him and transformed him into a well behaved obedient dog is my favourite story of Telepathic Communication. You can check her page Tales of Furry Tails.

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