A Dog's Life

This blog is about 'drops in the ocean'. With the drops representing every rescued dog. And the ocean being the Trivandrum area, capital of the southern Indian state of Kerala.

Kerala is also called 'God's own Country'. Because I look at Kerala from a dog's perspective I call it 'God's Dog Country' (and yes, this also explains the name of my blog). You might have noticed the funny coincidence that the three letter word G.O.D makes up the word D.O.G. when you spell it backwards(a forward email with this pun is actually circulating the Web). But in Kerala there is nothing 'divine' when it comes to a dog's life.

Why Kerala is called 'God's own Country' I don't know. It is a phrase often used in tourism advertising. You'll see it on billboards and on posters featuring clear blue seas, green carpets of coconut trees and white sandy beaches. And that's reality too here. For some, us lucky tourists, it's exactly that: a divine place for a tropical experience in a part of India that offers relaxation, adventure, culture and excellent cuisine.

However, for the dogs it is a completely different story. The cruelty animals are subjected to is disgusting. Dogs (stray dogs and petdogs) are being killed on a massive scale. And then there is the ill-treatment of dogs. Dogs with broken legs or semi-paralised dogs because they have been over-run by a car, dogs with maggot wounds because their chains cut deep wounds in their flesh, dogs with severe burns because people have poured boiling water over them, and dogs who had their legs cut off by some horrible creature with a sick mind.

These are awful things that can really get you to hate people. But that is absolutely not what I am intending to do here. The aim of this blog is not to make you downhearted. It's not meant to make you feel uncomfortable, guilty, or feel bad in any way. The aim of this blog is quite the opposite. It's meant to make you feel good, because you can do good.

Yes, the world is a shit place at times and there are a lot of nasty people doing horrible things, leaving others to deal with the results of their actions. But (and here is the good news) there are so many little lights in this world who clear up the mess and repair the damage.

Here in the Trivandrum area it is a British woman called Avis Lyons who does everything in her power to help these poor animals. Six years ago Avis gave up her comfortable life in Britain to move to Kerala and start a project to help dogs: Animal Rescue Kerala (ARK). At the moment she has nearly a hundred dogs in her care, which have all been subjected to a form of ill-treatment.

Her work and that of many others in this field is often referred to as 'a drop in the ocean'. It's these 'drops in the ocean' I would like to talk about on this blog, because I believe that every little drop deserves an warm applause from a large and encouraging audience.