“The world does not belong to us. We have just been given a space to live in. We need to learn to share this space with other living creatures as well” –With this mission, PAWS Thrissur was registered as a charitable trust in June 2012. They are one of the very few animal welfare organisations in Kerala striving to end the ill treatment of animals in God’s own country.
One of the first problems that they chose to address was animals- especially dogs that were injured in road accidents. Within a few months they were presented an Omni ambulance by the Canine club of Thrissur, for rescue work.
The next major problem was the number of abandoned pets. PAWS got regular calls from Thrissur district and outside regarding abandoned pedigree animals. Most of these dogs were ill with skin problems or tumors and would not have needed elaborate treatment if they had been treated in the initial stages.
“Foster homes are not a common phenomenon in Thrissur, and therefore we needed a place to house the animals till they were better and re-home able. Adverts were given out in the local papers asking for people to come forward to either foster or adopt. Meanwhile a multi pronged strategy was attempted to get the animals new homes” says Preethi Srivalsan, founder PAWS Thrissur about the challenges of finding permanent homes for abandoned animals.
PAWS has also been conducting classes to bring about greater awareness among school children. A rabies vaccination camp was held in Avanoor grama panchayat. A proposal has also been submitted to the corporation and panchayats offering to conduct ABC programmes in and around Thrissur and they are awaiting response.
The increasing number of stray bulls and cows in Thrissur city has been causing a threat to public safety. There was an incident where a bull injured a few people. PAWS got sanction to capture the said bull and keep it. Unfortunately, it died a few days later and the post mortem report revealed large amounts of plastic inside. They have requested the corporation to provide land where they are willing to keep and look after the stray cattle and keep them off the streets, safe from the attack of butchers. PAWS is now involved in intervening trucks overloaded with cattle being brought for slaughter from Andhra and Tamil Nadu.
Please visit http://pawsthrissur.com to know more and support their work.
