NGO which rescues street animals and feeds them

‘Pawsome’, Tripura’s first animal welfare organisation, provides medical care through trained veterinarian doctors to injured animals and also finds adopters for the animals

Agartala, Oct 30: A non-governmental organisation in Tripura which rescues street animals and feeds them, hopes to set up a permanent shelter for homeless and injured animals in the State capital Agartala.

‘Pawsome’, Tripura’s first animal welfare organisation feeds rescued street animals, provides medical care through trained veterinarian doctors to injured animals and also finds adopters for the animals.

It also conducts anti-rabies vaccination drive and sterilisation to control the population of stray dogs since its inception in 2015.

Secretary of Pawsome, Wrighbed Datta said the organisation is run and funded by its 40 members. It currently maintains a temporary shelter to treat injured street animals but they are actively pursuing the idea to build a permanent animal shelter with the hope of receiving some assistance from the State Government.

“We hope to build Tripura’s first ever permanent shelter for homeless and injured animals as there are many homeless, injured animals that are paralysed and the shelter will be a home to those helpless, mute beings”, he told PTI.

Dutta said, “Animals have the right to live. But homeless animals are tortured, neglected and people see them as worthless. But we differ from it. So our motive is to work for those animals, find a proper shelter, take care, and feed them as there is nobody to help them.”

A police officer said the NGO had helped to check trafficking of stray dogs and other animals to other North Eastern States.

“They (the NGO) themselves caught many vehicles running with stray dogs or other wild animals and handed them over to police or they informed police about smuggling with authentic information”, the officer said.

The organisation is also involved in spreading awareness and educating common people about animals and common ignorance in people’s behaviour while dealing with animals.

Pawsome organise many awareness campaigns across Tripura and in neighbouring States.

Datta claimed that Pawsome had organised the biggest animal sensitisation programme in North East in collaboration with a US-based organisation Human Society International (HSI) in 2019 to make police officers, municipal workers, forest department, animal resource development department employees aware of animal laws and how to protect animals and handle cases of animal cruelty.

In 2022 Pawsome organised awareness programmes in many schools across Agartala with the help of Animal Resource Development Department (ARDD) where they taught students about laws and rights of animals.

Besides these, they organise street rallies and campaigns to educate common people about the importance of animal welfare.

Datta said that times have changed since the start of Pawsome in 2015. People are now empathetic and come forward to help feed stray dogs on a regular basis, and report to the organisation if they witness any cruelty to stray animals.

Pawsome has been awarded the best animal welfare organisation in the North East by Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations (FIAPO). They were also awarded by the Animal Welfare Board of India for their wonderful work towards the homeless animals, he said.

Datta said Pawsome is a self-run organisation funded by volunteers and common people who are kind enough to donate to the cause.

Every day the organisation rescues about 20 to 22 street animals.

On the reports that canines like Pit-bull, Rottweiler and some pet dogs are aggressive towards people especially kids, he said the owners of those dogs should be more careful.

“… Nowadays people with zero knowledge about pet keeping buy these dogs to show off their pet dogs. I won’t say these dogs are aggressive but they are definitely from the dominant breed. So with lack of training and socialising they turn aggressive and attack people sometime,” Datta said. (PTI)