Our Latest Volunteer - Gill
Gill came to volunteer at our shelter and during her 4 weeks with us she enjoyed a sojourn to Jaipur, attended Serena’s leaving party where they were entertained by a local musician, experienced the local cuisine, learned the art of scooter riding and of course had the obligatory hennaed hand treatment.
Gill and her favourite shelter dog
Discover more about Gill’s experience as a Project Raja Volunteer at TOLFA
Day 2 in India began with breakfast with the girls, then a moped ride with Serena to experience my first day at the shelter. The shelter is literally in the middle of nowhere, all that can be seen is sand, cactus plants and the surrounding mountains. It’s beautiful. I took a look around the kennels and familliarised myself with some of the dogs. There is one row just dedicated to the dogs with mange, and another for those who have/are being sterilised. Part of the work TOLFA does is to control the population of stray dogs in Pushkar and neighbouring Ajmer and vaccinate against rabies.
The remainder of dogs in kennels are those with wounds that need to be treated, and some have paralysis in their legs. In many cases, dogs can cope fine with having an amputation and rush around as well as a normal 4 legged dog would. Other dogs, like Charles, an adorable black and white doggie who is a resident at the shelter, manages to get around just using his front two legs and shuffling his back legs behind him. Most of the dogs at the shelter just need love and affection more than anything else, and in most cases this gives them the motivation and strength to get better much quicker.
There are many kennel blocks at the shelter, A, B, C and D are for dogs due for sterilisations, E and F are for tumor and mange cases, and G and H are dogs with wounds that need treating. It is these final two blocks that we, as volunteers, are responsible for walking and giving general affection to. Myself and Lizette have become old hands at knowing the personalities of the dogs, and each time a new woofy comes into our block we analyse him or her and then decide whether they can be trusted to walk themselves or not.
My job at the hospital is varied, it involves feeding the puppies every morning and evening, making sure all needy dogs have enough food and water and none are in a very bad way, and the majority of the time I am general love-giver and carer for puppies and older dogs who need walking.
After feeding the puppies in the morning, my favourite job is getting them out of their cages in the puppy house for a cuddle and a chat, and then letting them out to play, they are like naughty children all running around and getting into mischief. They know me now as the food giver, and so follow me around in a herd wherever I go, it’s so cute to look back and see them bounding along as fast as they can, knocking each other over as they rush to get to the biscuits first!
Gill feeds the puppies
Along with the numerous pooches at the hospital, there are many cows with various injuries - mostly from being hit by a car or scooter - horses, the occasional goat and monkey, and at the moment there is a peacock who likes living in the toilet!
At the end of each day we round up the dogs, make sure they all have wagging tails and hit the road for home. On the way we are challenged by several young children who fail to realise that we dont want to hi-five them as we drive past on the bike, as this would almost certainly lead to mis-balance and ultimately a scooter crash. However, they are persistent little tykes and when you fail to slap their hand as you pass them, they do their utmost to touch you in some way or another.
The heat here in India is pretty much the same everyday… unbearably hot. Luckily I manage to keep cool by sitting in the shade at the shelter and drinking iced water helps too, but at night time its hard to sleep despite my ceiling fan being on full belt. So it came as a welcome change when the sky turned grey one afternoon. But then the winds picked up bringing gusts of sand through the air, and we hurried to get the dogs into the kennels before the heavens opened. And boy did they open! It bucketed it down for over 2 hours whilst we sat in the large animal operating theatre trying to keep the shelter residents happy and out of trouble.
At the shelter, we also try to get as many puppies re-homed as possible. Most of the dogs in kennels can go back onto the street, but the puppies who come in very young become dependent on humans for food and wouldn’t survive on the street. We went for dinner one evening at a hotel and we convinced the owner that it would be good for the hotel to have a pair of dogs and so he agreed to adopt 2 from the shelter! He named the pups Jacky and Julie. It is brilliant when we manage to adopt the puppies to nice homes.
Gill, Project Raja Volunteer
June 2008