Chennai: Dinesh Baba Panneerselvam, who is the founder of Cloud 9 Animal Care and Rehabilitation center in Iyyappanthanggal, Chennai is an animal lover, an animal welfare activist, and most importantly an animal rescuer who does anything possible to rescue the animal in need of help. He has rescued animals from calamities. He had rescued animals during the Chennai flood in 2015, the cyclone in Vardah in 2016, and also, had gone to Kerala and Madikeri during the floods in 2018-2019, and the latest rescues of the Chennai flood in 2021.
He had also fed the animals during the lockdowns when the pandemic struck. He also helped the abandoned pets get adopted, and got donations from good samaritans to go through this phase and help the team. He also has contributed to animal welfare by distributing water bowls to save the animals from dehydration ever since 2012. He also stitches the reflective collars for the stray dogs and cattle which has helped reduce the number of road accidents that occur. They also facilitate animal birth control (ABC) and vaccination for dogs as well as cats. He has rescued dogs, as well as cats that, had fallen into the well using proper professional equipment. He had taken up an initiative to adopt strays that were found on the marina beach and took a census of the dogs around a radius of 3km in 2016. They also rescue breed dogs who are abandoned, and pet abandonment increased a lot during the crisis of Covid.
He aims to fulfill his dream of building up an old age home and a geriatric shelter for dogs as well as other animals in Chennai. His aim is to give a better life, especially to old-aged animals who are in need of more care and attention and will be well protected from all possible vulnerabilities. He says, “There is no other shelter like this in India, so ours will be one of a kind”.
All the animals deserve love and compassion, most people abuse them or feel that strays are unhygienic but they are still living beings with feelings and emotions that we feel like a human. People end up buying bred dogs because of the status they get, but they aren’t in the sense that having a pet is as equal to the responsibility of having a kid.
Breed dogs brought from the mills/kennels go through the phases of bad breeding methods which cause genetic issues as well as diseases in them. Making their immune system weak as well. Mostly all these breed dogs are abandoned after they start facing such issues.
So the cycle of buying bred dogs should stop and start adopting the ones that need a home and to mention, that Indies make a great companion for all of us, and have a stronger immune system as compared to breed dogs.
Many people aren’t aware of the concept of neutering which would help the animal as well as the pet parents who don’t want their pet having kids or are not having a female pet because of the fact that they get in heat or keep reproducing.
Neutering or the term sterilization is the process where the animal’s reproductive organs of both male and female are removed with the help of surgery. It’s just not for female dogs /cats but also male dogs or cats too can be sterilized.
Sterilization can be done in order to stop the animal from reproducing anymore and mainly it stops the female heat cycle that they go through and the unwanted behavior of both female and male dogs/cats.
As the female dogs go through this heat cycle twice a year, it is very difficult to control them from reproducing more.
Giving an example, an unsterilized cat can end up littering 420,000 kittens in approximately 7 years and dogs who aren’t sterilized end up littering 4,372 puppies in 7 years. Delivering much often worsens the health and the state of an animal making them extremely weak.
Not only that, sterilization helps the animals live a healthier life as well as a longer life.
Most of the stray dogs litter puppies on the roadside and are crushed under the vehicle to death, but this process of sterilization has helped reduce such cases as well and our team provides reflective collars which have helped in the decrease of road accidents, especially which happens in the night.
Dogs can be sterilized once they are 6 or 9 months old, or even as an adult they can get sterilized. And cats can be sterilized at they are 8 weeks old
Sankirtha Mol
