News
Andhra Pradesh: Sharing dinner
May 11, 2008, 3:5AM MT
By Sharon St. Joan
And children get help for a monkey
And children get help for a monkey
By Sharon St. Joan, Best Friends Network
Monkeys are common on the streets of India. Here a dog and a macaque are good friends and share their dinner.
Such harmony is not always the case, however. Recently, in Visakhapatnam, a monkey was severely attacked by a pack of dogs. Sadly, the owner of the monkey had left him tied in such a way that he could not climb up anywhere to escape. He was left still alive, but badly injured.
The distraught owner of the monkey (it is illegal to possess a monkey, since they are wild animals, but it is often done) tried every remedy he could imagine to treat the monkey. Since he had no idea what to do, he even tried rubbing the monkey's wounds with hot chilies. As one might imagine, this only made things much worse.
When the man's two children heard the monkey crying in pain, feeling exasperated with their father's clumsy attempts to help the monkey, they got the help of a neighbor to bring the poor monkey to the Visakha SPCA shelter, where he could receive proper veterinary care.
After a few days of attention from the vets and the caregivers at the VSPCA shelter, the monkey was feeling a lot more like himself again.
The two children Saravani, who is seven, and her younger brother, Sarat, who is four, were thrilled to see that the monkeys wounds were healing well and that he was happy again.
Pradeep Nath, Founder and CEO of Visakha SPCA wrote, "After a few days of our attention, we returned the monkey to them, as we felt that he was better off there than with us under the circumstances."
With a few guidelines--and maybe some tips from his children-- the monkey's guardian will be able to do a better job of taking care of him.
The other macaque, who is sharing the dogs dinner, is actually the friend of two dogs who are buddies. The community they live in is right on the beach front, beside the Park Hotel, in front of the Visakha Urban Development Authority. There is also a school there. This is one of the street dog communities where the dogs are spayed, neutered and vaccinated by the Visakha SPCA, which has spayed/neutered many tens of thousands of dogs over the past twelve years in the city of Visakhapatnam.
Pradeep writes of them, "As our ambulance passes by, the two dogs, who know us by smell, come over to receive some attention from us, so we give some food to them. This has attracted the monkey, who comes and sits beside the dogs. She allows them to eat, and will be happy to finish up the leftovers.
"There is a great camaraderie between them all, and they all live together in that area, where the school children are used to them, as well as the passersby and the auto-rickshaw drivers."
In another recent case, a dog, inexplicably, was tied to a tree, then given no food or water for an entire week. The shop people nearby eventually thought to call the Visakha SPCA, who quickly came to the rescue of the dog. He is recovering well and will be okay.
In November of 1996, the Visakha SPCA went to court and won a major victory to stop the killing of street dogs in Andhra Pradesh. Visakha SPCA was able to convince the court that their TNR program (with rabies vaccination) would reduce the street dog population and the incidents of rabies. Since that time, thanks to the VSPCA's program, the dogs have been much safer on the city streets.
Over 50,000 dogs have been spayed/neutered by the VisakhaSPCA in the city of Visakhapatnam.
Photos: Visakha SPCA
Thanks to Pradeep Nath and Eileen Weintraub, of the Visakha SPCA, for contributing information for this story.
What you can do
Please visit the website of the Vishakha SPCA:
http://www.visakhaspca.org/index.php
Please join the India Community!