Rescuing "Heidi & the Flea circus"

what started as a relaxing day without any plans ended in a 48 hours full time project. on the way back from our morning coffee we walked into a nearly dying, three week old kitten. without thinking a lot we wrapped her in a plastic bag and some paper (she was veeeeeeeery dirty) and took her back to our hotel were we had to smuggle her inside as pets are not allowed there. after showering her we realized that she was very weak and covered with fleas. two pet doctors and some injections for the poor kitten later we finally got all the information needed to bring her to the cat and dog shelter. we took her back to the hostel and gave her water and some vanilla ice cream (as recommended by the pet doctor). the next day, on our way to the appointment with the doctor, we got evacuated from the metro as there was an earthquake (all our thoughts go out to the people in nepal!) and also got thrown out of the metro station after trying to re-enter it as the security guy saw our kitten in the bag. finally, after two more injections for «heidi» we were on the way to the cat & dog shelter outside of calcutta. please don’t be shocked by the pictures of the shelter place! as for our standards this might look very bad this place is like heaven for cats and dogs living in india. we were very happy to give «heidi» a lifelong shelter at this place and the people there take good care of their animals.

just saving that one kitten was very time and cost consuming but it was totally worth all the struggle and money we had to spend. we tried to help as much as we could which we also did with all the helpless, old and sick people we saw all across india (at least enough money for one meal which is roughly about 10 rupees (approximately 0.15 CHF)). at the shelter place we saw a quotation by mother theresa which describes our intention quite well: «this brings you my prayers and gods blessing for the purpose of spreading awareness to social welfare, animal welfare and environmental issues and all the inter-linked. let us remember that animals are gods creatures, i assure you of my prayers this effort may benefit all. let us be gods love to all we meet.»

for more information about the compassionate crusaders trust program check out www.animalcrusaders.org.