Tree Of Life For Animals

Dogs suffering with mange is an extremely common sight in India (and indeed many other parts of the world). Mange is a skin condition caused by mites, which cause allergic reactions and creates incredibly itchy, flaky skin and results in hair loss. Treatment can be with a variety of products such as medicated shampoos and sulphur baths, but it can take weeks sometimes months to clear and have a full regrowth of fur.

It can be a very debilitating condition, not just irritating, but also painful as skin sores often develop and can become infected. Read a case study written by Erika, a Project Raja volunteer. It just goes to show that every bit of time and compassion given can go a long way to making a big difference in the lives of these animals.

The mange dogs were like ghosts or goblins, hairless, wrinkled beings, crusted and scabby, some with a few tufts of hair, patches on flaky black, pink, grey speckled, chicken pocked skin, their skeletons floating just under the surface. I was afraid of them at first, the light leaving their eyes; the way they lay there, their skin hot and feverish. Tall Mange Fellow was the first mange dog I dared to touch. He lay curled in a kennel with another mange dog. Together, the two of them looked like giant depressed rats.

Every morning I carried around the buffalo milk, Pedigree, and eggs for the needy dogs. I always paid these two an extra visit, opening the door, talking softly, putting kibble and egg pieces between their paws or under their noses. They didn’t move; they didn’t know what it was. But when I came back the food was gone.

We lay the weakest one in the sun for warmth, but his skin was cold as a lizard’s, and he died. Tall Mange Dog’s cure was his hunger. He began lifting his head when I came in, shakily reaching out his neck for the food I held out, and with the same wariness letting me touch his head. Soon he was crawling, then standing.

Tall mange fellow when we rescued him, before any treatment had been started

One day he was waiting at the door. He ate whatever we could give him: three bowls of dal and rice for breakfast, one egg, a couple bowls of milk and Pedigree, and he ate fast. You didn’t want to get your fingers in the way. He was an eating machine.

Then he understood. He let us hear his voice. I came to recognize his bark, by its plain, matter-of-fact optimism, ‘I’m here!’ His dark beady eyes fixed on me from the shadow of the kennel. He moved his tail ever so slightly. I decided to take him out. Like most of the other dogs he didn’t know what a collar was or why I was putting it around his neck, or why I was trying to pull him along on a string.

He balked; I had to carry him off the door ledge and place him on the sand. He moved on stick legs, so thin, hovering at my side, leaning against me, amazed. I liked to see how the new dogs breathed in the wind and light, snapped at flies again, felt sand under their toes, and stared at everything around them, as if they had never seen cows before, or tractors, as if they had never been free. Tall Mange Fellow peed long and languidly into the sand; it seemed to go on forever. He peed on his toes and didn’t care.

I took him out to the cow shed and the ‘bore’ berry tree where he dug his bony pink toes into the sand and felt the sun on his flaky threadbare skin, his skeletal hips sticking out like elbows. There was nothing soft or sweet to pet, but I did anyway. I think he thought he was ugly, therefore why would anyone try?

He lay his long nose on his long paws and sighed, opened his rheumy eyes and closed them again. Sometimes I thought: they are not human, they are not animal, but something in between, a lost race. Nothing like the dogs at home. They survive on the streets, fierce and free, fatalistic.

In the evening, I carried in the sun-dried burlap sacks from the rocks. They made me sneeze and scratched my skin, raising welts all down my arms, but the dogs loved them and leapt up on them as soon as I laid them out, sniffing, taking possession of the little warm nest on the cold stone of their dark cages. Mange Dog did his nest-building dance, turning round and round, pawing the sack edges into a little bundle. He curled down on it, into a tight ball, tucked his rat tail and nose in under his bony hip, sighed and went to sleep. If we had enough sacks I lay a second one over his body.

Tall mange fellow looking splendid after his treatment

By the days he became playful, rubbing his head against me, then curling his whole body around me, like he wanted to crawl up into my lap. He played with Bruce, one of the yard dogs, a black lab-like dog who was forever nodding his head with the after affects of distemper. He pranced at my side as we jogged through the barren fields, the greyhound in him. He was transformed before my eyes, pink paws became white, a white spot bloomed on his chest, his fine head and body grew a shade of black, a sheen, the weight settled on his bones and they slowly receded. He seemed always on the verge of laughter, panting, smiling into the sun.

When I left him he was on his way. I don’t know where he is now, if he made it back to the streets, to being free. I didn’t want to affect his happiness, the way he has affected mine, to have him depend on me. I worry about where he has gone, but he, like all the dogs, must also wonder where we go.

by Erika Connor

Erika with Tall Mange Fellow

This entry was posted on Monday, May 12th, 2008 at 17:41 and is filed under Our Patients. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.