Orange City Animal Lovers

I had a wonderful experience in Gorewada Forest getting trained in techniques of wildlife tranquilization and gun maintenance. The two day, 16 hour training was conducted by the Nawab Shafat Ali of Hyderabad and his team with Dr. Naveen Kumar as the veterinary expert. Alongwith around 20 other Range Forest Officers of jungles around Nagpur, I learned about the various drugs used to tranquilize the animals, how to prepare the dart and load the gun. After that, we spent time practising using the guns and aiming for the targets. It was a novel experience for me because I dont really remember playing with even a plastic toy gun. The gun made of metal and wood took quite some time getting used to, but I did manage to fire quite close to the target. The Dan-inject gun was lighter and much easier to handle.

Most of us will remember the time when we used to feed our pet dogs what we ate- roti, sabji,dal and chawal, dont forget the ghee! Our neighbour's dog used to join him for afternoon tea and Marie biscuits also! But over the last decade or so, our market has been flooded with commercial pet food- Pedigree, Drools, Hills, Eukanuba for dogs and Whiskas for cats. Like all human companions, I too took this easy way out and stopped cooking for my dogs and cats. I used to open a huge packet of Pedigree and feed all my companion animals with it, three times a day. Till I realized that as a veterinarian, we have seen a spurt of cases of companion animals dying of kidney failure- technically also called renal failure or chronic kidney disease (CKD). We traced this to the high protein content of the commercial food. High protein causes stress on the kidneys and starts interfering with their filtration mechanism. Unfortunately, by the time we realize that the animal is urinating less, not eat

While you were sleeping, A sparrow tried to fly and fell down on the floor, A dog grabbed it's neck, and killed it. The child in me started weeping. While you were sleeping, A cow foraged around for something to eat, The milk man wouldn't feed her, She is of no use to him. While you were sleeping, A car drove fast on the smooth highway through the forest, A leopard was crossing the road and did not expect it, The concrete road saw it's sad eyes, dimming, dying, blood seeping. While we were sleeping A bulldozer razed a 700-year old tree, Nobody heard it cry out, nobody heard it's sigh. The Sky watched with regret, the Earth waited. The Earth is still waiting. For you to wake up.