Madhu Sharma (M-9958499964) a 71 year old lady is a retired government employee and a caregiver for the past several years. She has bee been a dog lover all through her life. 

She resides in an east Delhi colony and looks after three stray dogs. Two of them.are with her for the last five years and the third one Rocky was born just seven months back near her house. She took a liking for him and started feeding him. 

As a true caregiver Madhu believes in getting the dogs sterilized and vaccinated. She got Rocky vaccinated with 9 in 1 and rabies just about 20 days back. And then she got him sterilized. 

Madhu never liked the idea of calling the municipal corporation van and then getting the dogs picked in the most cruel manner through a loop. So she took Rocky herself to the Gazipur Sterilization centre which is run by Friendicoes and got him admitted there. After a couple of days she again went back to the centre and got Rocky back on 9th March 2020. 

Madhu is suffering from oestoporosis but that has never detered her from taking care of her three furry friends. 

She often faces opposition from her own neighbours but she just oesn't care.

The dog haters often take the excuse of young children and old people (senior citizens)  of being vulnerable to dog bites 

Isn't Madhu old? 

Doesn't that make her vulnerable?

Well! age or gender has nothing to do with dog biting or attacking. 

It is ones attitude and behaviour towards dogs which makes one vulnerable. 

Gazipur, Friendicoes is the oldest Sterilization centre in East Delhi. It has been operating for more than a decade now  Both the municipal corporation and Friendicoes have been sending their vans for picking up the dogs for sterilzatiom in the East Delhi area. 

Caregivers in East Delhi have a lot of trust in this centre. Many have now started taking their stray dogs themselves as they don't like the dogs going through the trauma of being caught by a loop .

The whole exercise of catching a dog by the dog catchers with the help of a loop is quite frightening and tormenting both for the dog as well as for the dog catcher. 

Many times the catchers get bitten by the dogs. Many times they get hurt as they run after the dogs to catch them. The whole process of catching the dogs is quite time consuming and difficult. Dogs often run away and are not caught. 

Here where the caregivers prove to be very helpful and useful especially people like Madhu who take the dogs on their own to the centre. 

Mostly caregivers help the dog catchers in identifying the dogs who need to be sterilized and also help them in getting them caught by putting the dogs in a closed area from where they cannot run and can be easily picked 

Trust, transparency and empathy towards dogs are three requirements which a caregiver looks in the staff of any Sterilization centre. 

Friendicoes Gazipur has all these three qualities. 

Wish East Delhi had more such centres.

Although  the Municipal corporations have failed in bringing people's participation in the ABC programme but the caregivers have on their own brought an informal collaboration with the Sterilization centres 

They are helping each other in making Delhi canine rabies free by controlling the stray dog population and giving the love and empathy which the man's best friend deserve. 

East Delhi Councillors if only they had time and the will to meet and see the hard work the caregivers are putting in then probably they would have never come out with such mindless and unlawful solution of making shelters for the stray dogs.

These are the new breed of politicians who are hell bent on changing the law itself just because the law is inconvenient to them and their majority voters. Shouldn't they have given some time and tried to understand the logic and rationale behind the law? The reason why dog bites and attack? Why relocation of dogs is neither in their interest nor in the interest of the country? 

Well it seems the personal interest of people has taken a priority over the national interest. 

Have the councillors and the decision makers ever imagined what will happen to Madhu when her Rocky would be forecefully taken away by the municipal corporation to some shelter. A shelter which will be devoid of love, food and hygiene. 

No matter what they say but we all know how government run shelters are.