India is having 30 million of stray population, many of which die because of hunger, extreme climatic condition, some psychopaths who beat them up to a death or crush by vehicles, many others are forced to struggle for life on streets because India; our country of 1.37 billion is crazy about pedigree dogs/cats and is not interested to adopt these innocent souls as they care more about status symbol and what people will say, if i adopted stray dog. Many celebrities like Virat Kohli, John Abraham, Om Puri, Soha Ali Khan, Farah Khan, Shilpa Shetty, Rohit Bal, Rekha and many more adopted stray animals and taken initiatives to promote adoption of indian dogs and cats which is paw-sitively awesome step towards the animal welfare.
Now a days "ADOPT DON’T SHOP" phrase is trending in almost every social media network, like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter where people are appealing for adoption of our stray and shelter animals, instead of buying pets from cruel pet breeding mills where breeder just care about money and breed animals in an unethical way in a filthy condition without food, water and veterinary care. Female is bred without recovery time between litters and most of the puppies carry serious genetic disorders because of inbreeding.
To boycott all these unethical practices we need to promote more and more adoptions, which can not only reduce animal cruelty but it will also help many animals find their family and home.
What kind of animals these no kill shelters generally have?
Most of the time these shelters have stray and abandoned animals, which are purely indigenous breeds or the mixed breed. Positive thing about these breeds is, they are very resistant for diseases and are very sturdy for Indian climatic conditions.
Many good Indian breeds of animals are now heading towards the path of extinction because of our long time ignorance, negligence and extreme obsession for foreign breeds. Some people are now trying to lighten up ray of hope by conserving these gems of India through breeding, conservation and adoption programs.
How you can adopt a pet?
Well, if you have friendly stray or abandoned animal like dogs or cats near by you, it is better to bring them home.You can get a pet without spending any penny and that animal will get a home.If this is not possible then you can approach any NGO, no kill shelter or local county which cost lesser than a pet purchased from the pet mill.
In India, some NGO’s provide you pets after sterilisation and rabies vaccination but if NGO is small and they couldn’t afford surgery and vaccinations, then they just help you with adoption, rest of the thing you have to take care.
In United States, most of the shelters, provide you pets after microchip, sterilisation, deworming and all vaccinations. Some shelters also conduct behaviour analyses of each pet to ensure that they will be right fit for your family plus they provide you information to improve relationship with your fur baby. So it is a very good idea to take home pets from such shelters.
Common native breeds of dogs and cats in India-
There are many native Indian breeds and it is difficult to pen them down here (there will be seperate blog for that), so we just see few common Indian breeds of dogs and cats which can be adopted as a pet:
Indian breed of dogs:
1. Indian bully kutta/ Indian Mastiff
2. Indian Gaddi Dog
3. Banger Mastiff
4. Kombi
5. Rajapalayam
6. Himalyan Mastiff
7. Indian Pariah Dog
Picture Source: pethelpful.com
animalwised.com
Indian breeds of cats:
1. Bombay Cat
2. Himalayan Cat
4. Spotted Cat
5. Domestic Cats/ Moggies
picture source: parenting.firstcry.com,
thesprucepets.com
I hope this article will help to change the perception of society towards our native breeds of animals and promote adoption of these wonderful fur-babies.
Be PAW-SITIVE :)