Landmark Victory for Animals

In a landmark victory for animals, the Supreme Court of India yesterday banned bullfights and bullock cart racing in many states of India in a major step towards protecting animals from human cruelty. The court favored constitutional status for rights of animals like citizens. It said, "Parliament, it is expected, would elevate rights of animals so that of constitutional rights, as done by many of the countries around the world, so as to protect their dignity and honor."

This is a time to celebrate the victory of animals, but how effectively this ruling is implemented is yet to be seen. Because despite stringent rules being in place to protect animals, they are still being tortured, mistreated, traded and butchered. A task force, to implement this ruling, should also be formed to oversee the implementation of this ruling, and the task force should consist of honest, animal loving officers. We hope that in near future there will be more such laws to protect the rights of the animals, and the animals would have more chances of living in peace.

Dogs dying in Line of Duty - Indian Elections

Some 450 canines are on election duty in India and many of them have died due to heat stroke. Working in sweltering heat, putting life and limb at risk, the hard working dogs have sniffed out about 221 kg of explosives in the form of IEDs across states in India. But this has taken a toll on them as many of them could not take the rigours of the mammoth task.

One of these dogs Brandy, a Labrador serving with the Central Reserve Police Force, detected about 40 kg of explosives. Thrice last year, he saved the lives of the security personnel by detecting explosives in the nick of time. Sadly, Brandy died on March 24. According to doctors, the cause of his death appears to be heat stroke. Some other dogs, Pinky and Silky, too died in April this year due to heat stroke.

Despite the difficulties and the fatalities, these loyal dogs continue to carry out their duties. But is it ethical for the security forces to overwork these dogs so much that they have to die saving human lives? Is the life of a dog less precious than the life of a human? Can't the number of these working dogs be not increased to lessen the woes they suffer at the hands of the people who value only human life as a life?

Stray Dogs Brutally Assaulted

Animal abusers have struck again. This time they have tried to burn a stray dog alive! This cruel and sad incident happened in Delhi in India where some animal abusers poured petrol on a street dog and set it ablaze. The dog was rescued by some animal care activists and given medical treatment.


What is alarming that such incidents have increased over the past four-five years, and are now reported almost every week. And what is very disturbing is that the dogs are abused in specific parts of their body, such as their genitalia!! The dog which was attacked recently, suffered heavy burns on its belly and testes! This is really sick.

After so much of spread of education and activism about animal compassion and animal rights and welfare, instead of being tolerant to animals; people are turning more and more violent towards them! Dogs are deliberately harmed with poison, burning, slashing, acid and beating. These cruel actions clearly show a total lack of value of life and disregard for animals as living beings. As a society, we need to learn to regard animals as living beings like us. We need to respect them as individuals as we respect pther humans. Most importantly, we need to learn that we exist on the planet only because of animals. If they perish, we will perish, too.

Rampaging Elephant Rescues Baby

An elephant smashed a house to bits in a village in India but when it heard a 10 month old baby crying under the debris, it turned back and carefully removed every last bit of stone, brick and mortar from the infant's body before heading back to the forest!

This incident proves once again that animals have emotions and wisdom, and they have them in abundance. An otherwise ruthless killer or thief might not have returned to rescue his own victim, but an animal did it. Doesn't this prove the need for us to think about animals in another and a better perspective?


Animals, like humans, have their own individual personalities, and need to be respected for who they are. More importantly, they are needed on the planet very much for the survival of the mankind, but we humans seem to be oblivious of this vital fact! We are killing animals and cutting trees like we have another planet in reserve to live on! Wake up humans, you have nowhere to go, and if you want your children, and their children, to survive; you'll have to stop killing animals and destroying the ecosystems.

Man Kills Dog with Hot Oil

In another incident of animal cruelty and human insensitivity, an eatery owner in India killed a lactating female dog, a mother of new born puppies, by pouring hot oil over her mouth. The female dog had given birth to a litter in the area a few days ago and had stayed too close to the eatery in search of food. This enrage the eatery owner and he poured hot oil over the female dog's mouth which killed her. She suffered excruciating pain before dying.

The pathetic, cruel, barbaric eatery owner should have shown some compassion and given the mother some leftovers everyday, which he would have thrown away in any case, instead he decided to kill her! The growing intolerance, insensitivity and hatred towards animals, apparently for no reasons, has reached alarming levels and ignorant people need to be given a lesson or two in love, compassion and tolerance.

It is very difficult to come to therms with this mindless violence resulting in the unfortunate death of a mother of newly born pups. One wonders what has happened to the society and why can't we let animals be on their own! Animals use the resources Mother Earth has given them. They never try to reproduce anything like us humans. They never pollute, lie, conspire or steal...yet we are intolerant towards them. We need to know and understand the fact very clearly that if there are no animals left on the planet, we won't be here either, too!

Woman breastfeeds puppy to save him...

In the US, a woman, who has compassion in abundance, breastfed a newborn puppy in order to save its life because the pooch was refusing to be fed from a bottle or have canine formula. This woman from Colorado, posted a photo of her breastfeeding an orphaned four day old puppy on her Face Book page and explained the reason to do so.

She said, "He just wasn't taking it. I didn't know what else to do, I was desperate and I just couldn't bear sitting there watching it die. I never thought I would ever do that. It was taboo to me as well. But I did the right thing. That dog is alive because I took the initiative."

This act of extreme kindness and courage is commendable and we only wish there were more people in the world today like this kind lady. Animals sure deserve a better life and we must make all the efforts to ensure their safety and well-being. In order to survive on this planet, we need to have animals more than they need us.

Dogs have Magical Powers - III

Another magical power of your pet dog is that he can recognize your photo from a variety of other pictures by tracking or looking at your eyes. So far, the specialized skill for recognizing facial features holistically has been assumed to be a quality that only humans and possibly, primates possess. But the new study proves that the canines have facial recognition skills similar to humans.

The researchers, led by professor Outi Vainio at the university of Helsinki, tested dogs' spontaneous behavior towards images - if the dogs are not trained to recognize faces, are they able to see faces in the images and do they naturally look at familiar and strange faces differently?

This is merely one more finding by humans about the magical powers dogs have. There are many more to be still discovered. In fact, we still know only a little about animals and the animal kingdom, although we claim to know a lot about them. These findings prove once again that animals deserve our respect and love and must be allowed to live a dignified life.