Jigmet Nurzin Angmo, the 27-year-old president of the Semchan Welfare Society — a Leh-based non-profit organisation overseeing the care of 170 injured, sick and aggressive stray and deserted canine — remembers an incident that left an indelible impression on her.
“About 10 years in the past, whereas driving into [Leh] city, I noticed one other automotive working over a canine. Regardless of the canine’s screams, the motive force of that automotive refused to cease and assist. As a substitute, I finished my automotive to look into what occurred to the injured canine,” remembers Nurzin, chatting with The Higher India.
“With no concept on how one can take care of an injured canine, I took her to the animal husbandry division the place she was handled. However we didn’t know the destiny of the canine as soon as she was handled. We didn’t know who was going to take care of this canine. Given the large inhabitants of stray canine in Leh, the query on my thoughts was what had been we going to do to assist the various who had been both injured or sick. That episode left a really robust impression on me,” she provides.
Since that episode, it was at all times her dream to start out a non-profit or a hospital that might deal with and take care of stray canine as soon as she achieved some monetary stability. Quick ahead to the primary COVID-19-induced lockdown in March 2020:
“In the course of the first lockdown, I got here to Leh and spent a whole 12 months there. Throughout this time, I realised there have been so many stray canine round that had been injured and sick, and I wanted to do one thing for them. So, I started volunteering with an area non-profit. For that complete 12 months post-lockdown, I used to be engaged in rescuing stray canine. However what I realised throughout this time is that one NGO can’t do the work to assist the exponentially rising stray canine inhabitants in Leh and that I wanted to do one thing extra in my very own capability,” she remembers.
In the summertime of 2022, nonetheless, she met Deena Talbot — a retired American girl and an skilled canine coach — at her father’s Maruti Suzuki dealership in Leh.
“Someday in late July 2022, Deena got here to our automotive dealership to do some repairs on her Maruti Eco van. On the time, my brother and I had been within the workplace. Throughout our dialog, she instructed us about how she rescues injured and sick stray canine, and will get them handled, sterilised and fed in her particular person capability with help from an area household. My brother then instructed her about how I used to be volunteering with one other NGO rescuing strays,” she remembers.
“After I met Deena, I noticed an individual who had the requisite expertise and information in how one can take care of these canine. She gave me the arrogance to tackle the accountability of opening a shelter regardless of my doubts,” she provides.
Deena remembers, “Nurzin needed to have a shelter for canine ‘sometime’. What I did was encourage her to make that day ‘now’, and he or she gathered different native canine lovers to type Semchan.” Deena presently performs the function of marketing consultant, mentor, and advisor for Semchan.
Semchan began with a small rescue shelter within the Khakshal space of Leh on land lent to them by an area household. Initially, they’d 22 canine underneath their care within the winter of 2022-23. However with the variety of canine underneath their care rising, they wanted more room and moved to a one-acre plot, which they took on lease from the Sankar Gompa, an area Buddhist monastery.
“Presently, our rescue shelter homes roughly 170 stray or deserted canine,” says Binod Aryal, a 38-year-old Nepali caretaker employed by Semchan to take care of these canine.
Inside Semchan’s every day operations
Semchan has a workforce of eight employees who function the rescue shelter every day. This consists of sustaining the resident canine, sustaining the ability, rescuing injured and sick canine, choosing up canine for sterilisation, and working a feeding programme for as much as 700 canine in Leh.
The shelter comprises about eight pens, plus a big central space the place canine can transfer round. There are roughly 170 canine however this quantity adjustments on a regular basis.
“We preserve the canine we really feel won’t be able to outlive exterior on their very own and launch those that can, to the place we initially discovered them. Canines from one pen will be launched to play within the central space after which returned to their pen. Contained in the pens, the canine are largely free to train and play additionally, and there are cages offered for many who want them,” says Deena.
To handle these canine, they’re housed in several pens. For example, older canine and canine receiving treatment and coverings are grouped within the largest pen measuring 100 x 100 ft. Canines that are youthful, wholesome, and extra lively, are housed in a separate pen. Younger pups, in the meantime, are grouped in one other pen. One pen is particularly devoted to a Tibetan Mastiff. On the surface, he developed a status for being aggressive with individuals.
“His proprietor needed to give up him as a result of he had bitten a number of individuals. We gave him his personal pen, together with a couple of feminine canine, and he will get alongside superb with them and the workers,” says Nurzin.
Semchan’s distinctive strategy to stray canine rescue
“Our rescue service has develop into fairly well-known in Leh. Our telephone quantity is offered in the neighborhood, so individuals name the workforce. The caller is requested to ship an image or video of the canine needing rescue and to remain there with the canine whereas we come. Normally, two males take the van, which is provided with a cage for capturing,” explains Nurzin.
“Our workforce makes use of cautious and compassionate seize strategies, virtually at all times with out nets or ropes. They normally cowl the canine with a blanket, scoop it up into their arms, and rapidly put it into the cage. Then we take the canine to the federal government veterinary hospital for examination and/or remedy. As soon as the vets launch the canine for aftercare, we deliver it to our Animal Rescue Centre (ARC), the place we comply with up with the prescribed medicines, diet, relaxation, and security, and follow-up visits to the hospital, if crucial,” says Deena.
Elaborating additional, Nurzin says, “A lot of the rescues are accidents from street accidents. Many of those canine have damaged bones and wish casts and rehab for a number of weeks. Some, nonetheless, must get their leg amputated. Different instances embrace canine affected by totally different diseases, and many others. Often there’s an uncommon rescue, the place a canine is trapped in a gap. Our persons are terrific at dealing with these conditions.”
Recalling one such rescue episode, Deena says, “One time, some younger ladies known as us for assist. A mom canine had delivered 4 pups in a small room in an deserted constructing. She nursed them until they had been about three months previous, then the mom was out at some point and somebody plastered over the doorway and the pups had been trapped inside alone.”
“When our workforce arrived, we assessed the issue. Lastly, one member was capable of squeeze his physique by a tiny window into the room and hand the pups out, separately. We took them to ARC and cared for them. They’d by no means actually seen the sunshine of day, or been round individuals or different canine. They required a variety of consideration and adjustment, and so they step by step grew to become regular little pups. Two of them died some months later for various causes, and two of them reside simply superb now at ARC greater than a 12 months later,” she provides.
Nurturing belief between canine and people
One of many issues that stands out about this explicit rescue shelter is how comfy these canine are within the presence of (human) strangers. On a private go to to the shelter in September 2022, it was fascinating to see how straightforward and cozy it was to enter the canine pens.
Nurzin notes, “You aren’t the one one who has remarked on this facet. We frequently take first-time guests proper contained in the pens to fulfill the canine. Additionally, fairly numerous canine are normally roaming freely within the central space and the realm proper in entrance of our little home. It’s superb to us that none of them are aggressive in direction of individuals and aside from a couple of shy ones, they’re pleasant with strangers. We will’t assist however really feel that they really feel a way of security with us.”
However what explains the creation of this protected atmosphere?
“This is a vital a part of our tradition. We begin by hiring members who we now have an inkling will likely be good with animals, and produce some love and care to the work. Then we set examples and insurance policies to encourage these attitudes, and our managers are continually coaching within the superb particulars of such care. We give every canine a reputation and preserve a paper document of every one with its image on the web page. The workforce members use the names, and converse with one another in regards to the progress the canine are making, the medicines they’re taking, and many others,” says Deena.
“We give all workforce members as many alternative duties as potential: feeding, administering medicines, cleansing cages and pens, holding information of care, sustaining infrastructure on the facility, going out for rescues, and many others. Everybody is inspired to speak to the canine, study their our bodies for any new issues, cuddle with them, and so forth. So, a member who could not have expertise with hands-on canine care will study it by the great examples set by others,” she provides.
The challenges of mass feeding stray canine
One of many key initiatives taken by Semchan is the feeding of canine not simply housed on the rescue shelter however throughout totally different feeding centres in Leh.
“We feed about 300 canine in the summertime months and within the final winter season, we fed about 650 (one feeding session a day) throughout 27 feeding stations. We put together the meals in our kitchen, consisting of rice combined with dry pet food, hen, and a water/milk portion to melt it,” says Nurzin.
Nevertheless, many canine specialists have expressed their concern about mass feeding, and the way it exacerbates the rising battle between canine and people.
In a previous dialog with The Higher India, Dr Abi Tamim Vanak, an animal ecologist and conservation biologist, mentioned, “It’s not [necessarily] provocation, however pack formation that results in lethal [stray dog] assaults on individuals. And why does pack formation occur? It occurs at any time when you will have huge assets gathered in a single place. Feeding one or two canine is okay, however once you feed 5, seven, or ten canine at one location, that’s when pack formation happens.”
Deena, nonetheless, disagrees with this argument.
“Hungry canine develop into aggressive canine. In our expertise, feeding helps in holding the canine inhabitants calm and content material and doesn’t encourage assaults. If there had been any assaults on people within the areas the place we feed, the Authorities would have contacted us. We now have not acquired any such notification. Throughout winter, we feed between 1 pm and 5 pm in order that the canine will not be hungry at evening,” she argues.
However amid rising canine chunk instances within the area, the Union Territory Authorities of Ladakh issued an order in July 2024 stating, “All armed forces institutions, motels, homestays, eating places, visitor homes in Leh district shall strictly chorus from throwing leftover meals on the roads and different locations reachable by feral canine.” One of many causes given for this order was that “instances of feral canine bites have gone up exponentially, thereby posing a threat to public security and well being.”
Mass feeding is a fragile subject that requires higher scientific scrutiny and examination.
Dedication to canine care and rehabilitation
Past paying for meals and the gas prices incurred throughout rescues, Semchen additionally incurs the price of spaying and sterilising canine by way of a personal vet.
Going additional, a Vet Tech comes each night for 2 and a half hours to bandage the canine. In addition they get hold of vaccines to guard canine from the Parvovirus [a highly contagious disease that can affect dogs] that are available from Pune. “There have been no instances of Parvo since March-April 2024,” claims Deena.
“We administer prescribed tablets, change wound dressings, apply topical medicines, and provides bodily remedy in some instances — akin to ensuring a canine workouts, or giving assist to a canine studying to stroll with a brand new harm,” provides Deena.
“We’re constructing extra shade buildings and increasing the open play space. We have to construct yet another room quickly that can develop into an isolation ward for recovering canine and people affected by illnesses like Parvo, and a meals storage room. We wish to enhance our landscaping all through the house, which is able to embrace crops, irrigation, stone retaining partitions, steps, and pathways. We additionally wish to dig a borewell by the subsequent vacationer season,” says Nurzin.
(If you wish to volunteer, please contact Arun Kumar at 9622143432. You may as well comply with Semchan Welfare Society on Instagram right here.)
You possibly can contribute to their efforts by donating to their account. Under are the main points:
Account Holder: Semchan Welfare Society
Account No: 43403061172
Financial institution: State Financial institution of India
Department: Sme Leh
IFSC Code: SBIN0064099
(Edited by Pranita Bhat; Pictures courtesy Rinchen Norbu Wangchuk)
