Trained or not, Delhi still revels in this pooch party

NEW DELHI: News spread that paramilitary dogs are up for adoption and dog lovers dropped by in hordes to pick the pet pooch of their choice. Weekend shopping crowd at Select Citywalk mall too joined in and soon almost everyone had applied for all the dogs on stage. In between all the commotion and a scramble for the dogs, it turned out, there were only two CISF retired dogs among all the pets that People for Animals (PFA) had rescued and put up for adoption.
While the hopes of adopting a paramilitary dog did bring people to the mall, non-availability didn’t deter dog lovers from going ahead with adopting their selected pets though.Laavanya Sharma, daughter of a retired army man was thrilled at getting Sandy, a two year old labrador mix. She had lost her dog a year ago and would have adopted one anyhow. “We were browsing pet adoption sites when we came to know about former army dogs being available for adoption. Since we were planning to adopt one anyway, we are taking one back from here,” she exclaimed, proudly showing her new ‘family’ member.
Sharma had all the reasons to be proudly excited about walking back with one of 20 dogs available for adoption. Each dog had almost 10 families vying for it. The families were being interviewed personally by women and child development minister Maneka Gandhi. The questions being asked ranged from if the families ever have had a dog at home, their eating habits, working hours to the number of members in the family. Chances of a single professional walking away with a dog were none, as the minister was looking for dogs to be well taken care of and not be locked alone at home all day.
The biggest draw of the day no doubt were former CISF dogs, a two year old lab Lucky and a seven years old Sheru. Brigadier Kulwant Singh, who adopted Lucky added that his being a former police dog is insignificant. “I would have taken this shiny golden boy anyhow. I couldn’t say no to him since I saw him,” he said. Brigadier added that he would get in touch with the dog’s former handler to know his habits better.
Gurgaon resident Kiran, who had adopted Sheru, said she wanted to adopt an army dog ever since she read about these dogs being ‘put to sleep’. On hearing about such adoption opportunity, she couldn’t resist it. Her daughter, Deepali looked unfazed that Sheru wasn’t an army dog. She exclaimed that she already has one dog and was looking to add one more to the family. “We will first get a full check-up done for the dog, and allow it to relax and mingle with family. The dog is going to be a permanent member of the house,” she said.