November 2018, Jaipur. Gangurani and Bhombol were found half drowned in a tank of water. Immediately rescued and treated for one month for mild pneumonia, they were taken in under the foster care of my mother, a 60-year single woman living on her pension.

We had to keep a keen eye on their everyday care and their diet. They were considerably weak after the illness and we remember that my mother would stay up nights listening to their raspy breathing, trying to ensure that there was no relapse. They would refuse food for the first week. We would take tiny syringes filled with warm soup and gently force it down their little mouths. Those weeks passed slow and full of worry.

But luck was on our side. These furry siblings, the strongest of their litter started to recover fast. Soon they were healthy, lively and boisterous. The tiny flat that my mother lived in proved to be too small for their growing needs. They would run for hours at an end, we would sometimes take them to the common roof, but the neighbours objected. “Roofs are for children and elderly, not dogs” they told us.
We knew we had to move them out to a better, more open space.
By then we had already started an adoption campaign. A family, living not too far from Jaipur volunteered to adopt both of them. I knew home checks were mandatory, we visited them, met the family, ensured that they had space and a good intent. Everything seemed to be a fairytale, but in two weeks we realized it was far from it.
One morning, a frantic call from the adopters. “Take them back, they run around and go to the cow shed where we keep our animals, our relatives do not like it, they also ate a frog the other night.”
I didn’t pause to think. We immediately drove 120 kilometres and brought them back to my house, already full with 3 other dogs.
We knew we had to launch ourselves once more on the social media and through all possible channels of adoption. That is when, thanks to a friend in Chicago, I got in touch with Shreemoyee.
Shreemoyee was an immense support for us, connecting us to the adoption organization who offered to take on the case of Gangu and Bhombol. Delhi the street dog foundation in Delhi is well known and the success rate of their work is very high. So many beloved Indies have found homes in the USA thanks to them. I could not believe that my fosters too would have their chance at a better, secured, loving future.
But the reality is that it is not easy to figure out the logistics. We need to be able to raise 1 lakh, 35 thousand INR to cover cost of their travel, medical examinations, paperwork and crates. It is not a small amount we know, but it is an amount that we can arrange if everyone can contribute a little something.
I don’t know if we will manage to pull this off, if we can send them on that plane to USA to a loving home, we don’t know, but what we do know is that this is possibly one of their best chances at a forever home, a beautiful future.
 
Those of us who work in animalcare know that indies are not considered homeworthy in India. We would spend thousands on importing an inbred fancy dog in a weather condition barely suitable for it, rather that give a home to a loving, robust indie.
 
A lot of people have asked me why take them all the way to USA? I will answer that. Because I have spent almost a year now, looking for homes, being asked “what breed”, being told, “they look like dogs outside my home”, being told “show me papers for your dog, if they are pets”, being threatened that my “streed dogs” shouldn’t play with “their dogs” lest they transfer “diseases”.
 
A lot of us, countless number of us work tirelessly to give these animals what they need and deserve, and there is a lot of love to be found in India too, but just that, standing here, and looking from where I am not filled with hope.

I want to give them their one chance somewhere else. I have heard of miracle stories. I read them everyday, so many beautiful faces and names finding homes as far as USA, Canada, Australia.
Maybe my Gangu and Bhombol too.

We need you to help us, they need you. Maybe I have written all this in vain, who knows. But we have to keep trying and seeing what we can achieve. I count on you, just as they do. Don’t let them drown, please. Not again.