Peshawar: Bela was in a miserable condition due to a fractured leg, caused when children threw stones the black and white colored stray puppy .
The tiny mutt, who faced starvation and was in dire need of care, finally found shelter at a sanctuary established by an animal lover in Peshawar for street dogs.
Zeba Masoud, a Pakistan origin US national, has established Lucky Animal Protection Shelter - first ever facility providing refuge to pooches in Khyber Pakthunkhwa.
“I have set up the sanctuary for providing protection and shelter to maltreated, beaten and starved stray dogs” Zeba said.
“It makes me sick and breaks my heart to see all these stray dogs, cats, puppies and kittens on road in pathetic conditions,” said Zeba who resides now a days is in Peshawar for care of her ailing mother.
“The objective behind establishing this facility is to provide shelter to mistreated stray dogs mostly seem roaming around butcher’s shops or dump of garbage in search of food.”
“I wanted to do something for these animals who are in need of attention and help from human beings, she remarked while feeding dogs at her sanctuary set up at canal road near University Town in the outskirts of Peshawar.
These unattended stray dogs also pose serious health risks to human beings in form of dog bite which causes fatal disease, rabies.
She disclosed that at Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) Peshawar, a leading hospital of KP, about 30 patients of dog bite arrive on daily basis. Non-availability of anti-rabies vaccines is also another issue of serious concern, she added.
While the data compiled by District Health Information System (DHIS) reveals that about 58,252 cases of dog bites are reported in the year 2016 across Khyber Pakthunkhwa.
“There is no attention towards this problem of dog bite which is causing fatal rabies mostly to children,” remarked Dr Qudratullah, veterinary doctor who also takes care of dogs getting shelter at Lucky Animal Protection Shelter.
There are hundreds of thousands of dogs roaming in streets posing health danger to people, but concerned authorities are not giving due consideration to this problem, Dr Qudratullah said.
Poisoning stray dogs is not a solution to this problem and government should also set up shelter homes for these pooches, he suggested.
“We have vaccinated and neutered all the 35 dogs kept in the sanctuary to make them harmless,” says Javed Khan, husband of Zeba Masoud.
Javed, who also supports his wife in animal protection, says he plans to make proper kennel at the site of enclosure to separate puppies from dogs.
The daily expense of feeding these dogs is around Rs1,500 (Dh85.36) to Rs2000, Javed explains.
Javed informed that people are approaching them for extending help in the cause and some have also sent donations for proper running of the sanctuary.
He said there is also plan of opening a branch of the sanctuary at Hayatabad so that more dogs could be provided shelter.
He said the sanctuary also provide dogs or puppies to animal lovers who wanted to adopt them. Earlier we had around 35 dogs in the sanctuary and seven were adopted by people.
