Animal Rahat Update

November 2008 — February 2009

Animal Rahat ("rahat" means relief) is a nonprofit animal welfare organization that PETA helped to establish and is now helping to expand. Most working animals in India belong to people who cannot afford (and have not been taught how) to provide even the minimum standard of care. Bullocks, buffaloes, horses, camels, and donkeys suffer from poor nutrition (they often eat only weeds) as well as dehydration, untreated sores, strains from overloading, injuries, and even harsh beatings from drivers determined to keep them pulling their carts. Two of the most common ailments they suffer from are lameness and depression. Because of their poor diets and the grueling physical demands made of them, these debilitated and despairing animals sometimes lose the will to carry on.

Donkeys at a brick kiln forced to carry heavy loads.

Staffed by a team of veterinarians and their assistants, Animal Rahat offers vital relief to these beleaguered animals. The program helps animals' owners, who often don't have enough money to meet their own let alone their animals' basic nutritional requirements. When needed, Animal Rahat pays to repair broken harnesses or to obtain treatment for animals' illnesses or injuries.

Rahat also teaches owners basic animal welfare practices, including fundamental, practical measures, such as providing real fodder rather than contaminated scrub and giving animals who work in the heat water so that they won't collapse. Carts loaded with passengers or commodities such as bricks can weigh thousands of pounds, and journeys can be long, so it is crucial to teach people to reduce and balance the loads that animals are forced to pull along heavily rutted, unpaved roads.

Founded in 2003 with just one treatment station and two employees, the program now has 56 treatment stations and a staff of nine. Thirty stations are located in Solapur and 26 in Sangli. (Solapur and Sangli are two districts in Maharashtra, which is one of the largest and most populous states in India.) At the start, Rahat veterinarians could treat on average between 10 and 15 animals per day. Now that number has grown to 60!

Providing Crucial Time for Recovery
Animal Rahat also provides paid rest days to help overworked animals and their owners. Many people live at subsistence levels that do not allow them to sacrifice the income from even one day's work in order to give their animals a day of rest. When the Rahat staff encounters an animal who is so ill or injured that rest is crucial to his or her recovery, it covers the owner's normal income for the days the animal needs to rest.

A buffalo too ill to stand.

Over the past year, Animal Rahat has seen more and more cases in which owners have agreed to provide rest days for their bullocks and yet refused to accept the compensation that was offered. This is terrific proof that people value the Animal Rahat program so much that they want to preserve its resources for others in need.

In this report, we list a few of Animal Rahat's many achievements from November 2008 through February 2009.

Providing an Alternative to Other Veterinary Services, Which Can Be Unreliable
In early November, during Diwali (a five-day major religious festival), many government veterinary clinics were shut down, and so Rahat's services were especially needed. Clients expressed their deep appreciation to the Rahat team for being available when they otherwise would have been unable to get treatment for sick or injured animals.

Villagers report that Animal Rahat's vets give more accurate diagnoses and more reliable treatment than other local veterinarians (assuming other vets can be found). For example, this past quarter, when a bullock owned by a man named Mr. Mane was suffering from a swollen shoulder, the Rahat vets treated the animal and prescribed a week of rest. However, Mr. Mane then went to another vet, who told him that the shoulder was broken. Mr. Mane chose to try traditional treatment, which caused the bullock great pain. The following week, Mr. Mane brought the bullock back to the Rahat station, explained what he had done, and noted that the bullock was worse than ever. The Rahat vets assured him that the bullock's shoulder was not broken and gave him a firm warning against ignoring the animal's need for rest. When they followed up with a home visit, they found that the bullock had been rested and was almost completely recovered.

Sugarcane Season Means an Even Heavier Workload for Some Animals
During sugarcane season, the Animal Rahat staff set up a temporary treatment center at the Solapur sugar factory. Upon noticing that many of the bullock owners had also been there the previous year (a somewhat unusual occurrence), they asked the owners why they had chosen this factory again. The owners responded that the most important reason was that they knew Animal Rahat would be there for their animals!

The sugarcane cutters explained that, during sugarcane season, they cannot afford for their bullocks to become ill or injured, but any other vet would charge more than 500 rupees for just one visit—an impossible amount for such impoverished people to pay. Some of the owners told the staff that when they saw the Rahat van, they felt that it was sent by God!

The Rahat team had been advising all sugarcane cutters to rest their bullocks at least one day a week. When they noticed that many owners were not taking this advice, the Rahat vets approached Mr. Thorat, a bullock owner whom the others greatly respected. They took Mr. Thorat aside and explained in detail how denying the bullocks rest would lead to debilitating illness or injury and therefore result in less work and less income. It worked! With the guidance of this respected leader, the sugarcane cutters agreed to give their bullocks much needed rest days.

Villagers Invest Time and Resources to Make the Most of Animal Rahat's Services
In one of the villages where the Animal Rahat team has been providing regular services for a year and a half, the only space that had been available to treat animals was at the side of the road, which posed a terrible danger. Recently, the villagers cleared space for a 3,000-square-foot plot to accommodate Rahat's services. They also erected a metal stall-like device called a travis (which the Rahat staff donated), and everyone is thrilled to have this extremely useful structure, which will prevent the need to cast bullocks to the ground for treatment—a stressful and frightening experience for the animals. The Rahat team was gratified to see that these villagers valued the health and well-being of their animals enough to create a safe space for treatment.

In the village of Ulhe, the Rahat team had also treated bullocks for the past two years without the benefit of a travis. This quarter, they asked the sarpanch (the village leader) to arrange for a travis to be erected and told the villagers that Rahat would pay for it. The villagers replied that since Rahat has saved the lives of so many of their bullocks, they would appreciate the chance to make a contribution, and they insisted on chipping in for the cost of the travis, while the village government paid the rest!

Preventing a Long, Painful Death
In an important breakthrough case, the Rahat vets visited the home of an owner named Mr. Aiwtade, whose 22-year-old bullock was unable to stand. The vets saw that the bullock was so debilitated by two wounds on his thighs that he had no chance to recover. They recommended euthanasia, but Mr. Aiwtade initially refused on religious grounds. The vets explained how much the animal was suffering and called the other family members to join the discussion. The family said that they would have to think about it and would call with their decision later that evening after consulting with an astrologer. That night, they called and agreed to let the vets euthanize the bullock. The next morning, the vets gave him a peaceful release from his pain. It's important to realize what a meaningful case this is. For people to overcome centuries of belief that putting an animal out of his or her misery will come back to haunt them is monumental!

Better still, a few weeks later, Mr. Aiwtade came to the Rahat treatment center in the village of Dongaon to speak to the villagers and explained that the experience made him realize that, while relieving an animal's pain in order to allow the animal to continue working is a worthy goal, it is just as worthy to relieve an animal's pain simply to end his or her suffering.

Achieving Long-Term Change Through Education
The Animal Rahat staff continues to push for long-term improvements to animal welfare by giving daily talks at various treatment centers. Subjects are extremely varied because working animals face so many dangers. Some of the topics covered over the past few months have included chronic neck inflammation and wound care; equine flu symptoms and precautions; the importance of deworming and grooming; how fodder condition affects water needs; the dangers of aspiration pneumonia caused by giving oral medication improperly; the causes of horn cancer; and keeping animal housing free of ticks and other parasites. It's wonderful to think about how much better animals' lives are becoming because of this kind of owner education.

A horse receives an inoculation from a Rahat veterinarian.

Of course, the Rahat vets also use real-life cases as teaching opportunities. For example, an owner named Mr. Gawali took his bullock to a Rahat station to be treated for indigestion. The Rahat staff noticed that Mr. Gawali kept returning with the bullock repeatedly for the same problem. It turned out that, although the vets had provided oral medication for the bullock, Mr. Gawali had not been able to get the bullock to swallow it. Other owners who were there said that they had experienced the same problem. Our vets then demonstrated the proper method of administration to get the bullock to take the medicine easily. They then asked Mr. Gawali to practice administering the medicine, which he was able to do successfully. This provided a helpful lesson to everyone present.

Helping to Retire Working Animals
A very important focus for Animal Rahat is its animal-retirement program. Long-suffering cart animals are often sold for slaughter (which is generally performed without stunning following an unbearably long and hellish journey) when they become too old or ill to work. As an alternative, the Rahat staff encourages owners to allow animals to continue living with their families until they die so that their remaining years can be free from work and pain and the terror of the slaughterhouse.

To lessen the expenses incurred by owners when they are not earning money with their animals, Animal Rahat pays for part of the animals' feeding expenses if the retired animals are kept with their owners. Thanks to Rahat, six retired bullocks and one retired horse are currently living with their families.

If owners do not have enough money to keep their animals after they become too old to work, Rahat encourages owners to turn their animals over to Rahat instead of selling them for slaughter.

Five bullocks are now living at the Animal Rahat retirement facility, where they will never have to work again. During the day, the animals enjoy grazing on the grass, drinking from large water bowls, resting in the shade of the trees, and nibbling on food that is scattered around the property to encourage them to exercise their aging limbs. In the evening, they stroll to the sheds to bed down for the night. Five retired donkeys who are currently being treated for injuries are also at the facility, as are two horses who have been retired. After they heal, they will be sent to a partner sanctuary, where the soil is much better for equines.

It is extremely gratifying to be able to provide rest for these retired animals and to help alleviate the suffering of the thousands who are still working. Animal Rahat sponsors make this program possible. Thank you!