Man drives 4000km for pet healthcare

CHENNAI: The critical care unit at the Madras Veterinary College was abuzz with activity on Friday morning. By the time Sanjay Sharma walked in with his pet dog Bonxie, a team of doctors and attendants was ready to take charge. As flashbulbs popped and cameras rolled, veterinarians fitted Bonxie with a holter ECG, which would monitor and record his heart function for the next 24 hours.All along, Sharma remained by his dog’s side, crooning to him. “He will be alright, he knows I want him around,” says Sharma, who drove 4,000 km from Shillong to Chennai to get his pet the best healthcare available in the country. “He is an inseparable part of my life,” says Sharma, who got the Boxer as a gift from a friend in Alabama. Sharma, who has his own security-cum-detective firm back home, even has a blog for his pet, www.bonxieboxer.com.
A lively 16-month-old , Bonxie first displayed symptoms of his illness in January. “We had a severe winter and Bonxie wasn’t keeping well. He was on antibiotics and when he first fainted, I though it was due to weakness,” says Sharma. However, when Bonxie began having fainting spells in quick succession, sometimes two to three times in an hour, Sharma rushed him to the local vet, who said further investigations would be required. My brother-in-law is a vet who studied in Madras Veterinary College and he put me onto doctors here. “They have the best veterinary care facilities in the country,” says Sharma, who contacted professor of clinical medicine Dr A P Nambi about 10 days ago.
Sharma decided to come down to Chennai with Bonxie after vets suspected there was something wrong with the dog’s heart since it has an irregular heartbeat. Air travel was ruled out since he was afraid the cargo hold may not be well-oxygenated. “I didn’t travel by train as Bonxie hates closed doors and the motion may upset him,” he says. So he hopped into his Mahindra Xylo along with Deepak, his man Friday, and drove down to Chennai.