Animal Aid Unlimited

We arranged for our tuktuk driver to pick us up at 9am outside the hotel and take us to the shelter. The ride took 30 minutes through the streets of Udaipur, the traffic is as we thought it would be HECTIC. Everyone beeps their horns, bikes weaving in and out of the traffic, going the wrong way, riding on the pavements, total mayhem. The air pollution is awful and quite choking at times, so pleased the shelter in outside the city.
Once inside the shelter we are greeted by Jim one of the co-founders, he welcomed us and chatted to us about the shelter. We were introduced to a volunteer co-ordinator Raj, he took us on a tour around the shelter. After the tour we sat and chatted with Gemma and she told us what sort of stuff we would be doing. No pressure is put on you to do anything, you can just sit all day and stroke the dogs or you can be more hands on like us.
Jim's wife Erika arrived and greeted us very warmly, like we were old friends and I liked that.
Jim, Erika and their daughter Claire came to India for a holiday and hated seeing the street animals hurt and in pain with no medical care in the city for them. So thats basically how Animal Aid got started many years ago. The shelter will help any animal thats needs help but mainly they deal with dogs and cows but they also have donkeys, cats, goats, water buffalo and a chicken that fell from a lorry taking them to slaughter.
So our first day we spent with the disabled dogs and feeding the calfs milk as they are all orphans. This was great fun as I had never been so close up and personal with a cow before and I must say they are a very affectionate animal. All the healthy cows are keep in a paddock away from the yard where the ill or injured cows and donkeys are kept. Also in the yard laying on mats are the cows that are dying due to what us humans do to them.
Like most places in the world when a male calf is born it is slaughtered as they are of no use to the farmer but in India the cow is sacred so the young male calfs are dumped in the streets. Also when a female cow no longer produces milk they are also discarded on the streets. With no one to feed these animals they result to eating the rubbish which includes the plastic bags. Their stomach's cannot digest the plastic so eventually they can't eat anymore and they end up in the shelter to die.
Very, very sad to watch these animals just lying there on the floor in the heat and flies all around them waiting to die of starvation basically.

Our daily ride

Cows are abandoned in the streets