SHELTERS

Plans are on to build gaushalas to provide proper veterinary care, shelter and food to the stray cows who currently roam the streets of India.

NECTAR OF HOPE PROGRAMME

Through the Nectar of Hope Programme, impoverished survivors of the Uttarakhand flooding will be given the gift of a cow, a chance to restore hope to widows and families that have lost everything. They will be taught skills so that they may learn how to also earn a living from their new animals, such as how to produce and market natural medicine and improved milk.

They will also learn organic gardening techniques that will be accentuated by the fertilizer naturally provided by their cows. In such a way, family incomes can be earned and healthy food can be put on the table for growing children.

SAVING STREET COWS

As an added component of our work, relocation services are also being provided for ailing street cows who have no homes and desperately require veterinary care. For too long, these animals have been forced to graze on solid waste, ingesting plastic bags and toxic materials in their search for food.

Through the help of compassionate sponsors, they can be relocated from alleys, roadways and trash heaps to rich, green pastures.

THE PERFECT SOLUTION

The cow is the perfect example of how economic progress can occur alongside ecological preservation. While stray cows are taken of the streets, they are protected and respected. Their by-products, which would otherwise go to waste, can instead be used for organic farming and the production of ayurvedic medicine, for the upliftment of all.

THE SITUATION

It’s a problem seen throughout India: overly-skinny dogs, bones protruding, suffering from the plagues of fleas, mange, worms and wounds. In many areas these dogs are not welcome, often due to a fear of being bitten and rabies, so these dogs are yelled at, beaten, hit with stones and more. They rarely receive any medical treatment for the illnesses and injuries they face, and often face slow, painful deaths without so much as any food.

The dog population in Rishikesh continues to grow, yet there is not enough food and space to go around. Because there is not enough food, and because dogs are territorial creatures by nature, fights often ensue, leading to wounds which become infected and even death. This is complicated even more when breeding season comes, as males compete for females and fights increase. Female dogs are constantly becoming pregnant, delivering litter after litter of puppies. Most puppies born do not make it through their first year, and the continuous strain of pregnancy and motherhood greatly drains and shortens the lives of these dogs.

OUR WORK

A new program is being started by the Divine Shakti Foundation to bring “ABC” (Animal Birth Control) or “family planning” options – spaying and neutering – to the dogs in the Rishikesh area, a service which until now has been wholly unavailable for the dogs here. In addition to providing “family planning” procedures for these dogs, we will also be vaccinating all the dogs against rabies and treating the dogs for any other medical issues they come in with, whether that be mange, worms, or even broken bones.

THE BENEFITS

1. Slows down the constant tragic cycle of birth and death of new litters
2. Greatly improves the health and longevity of all the dogs immediately by stabilizing the population of dogs in the Rishikesh area
3. This means there will be more space and more food available for each dog, and thus less fights which lead to infected wounds and even death.
4. Without the constant strain of breeding, pregnancy, and motherhood, female dogs will live easier, healthier lives.
5. The increased aggressiveness associated with breeding in male dogs – which leads to fights – will end.
6. Diseases which greatly affect stray dog populations, such as the sexually-transmitted Transmissible Venereal Tumor (TVT), will cease to be spread.
7. Eradicates the risk and spread of rabies through dogs.