Darga, our most experienced dog catcher for the ABC Program!
One of the most effective ways VSPCA forwards its mission of helping with animal pain and suffering, is to tackle specific issues at grassroots levels. One such issue is understanding how to help humans who take to killing dogs as a means to support their livelihood. VSPCA’s founder, Mr. Pradeep Kumar Nath, makes an effort to talk to such people, to explore if he can provide them with a satisfactory livelihood as helpers in VSPCA’s initiatives.
Today, we highlight one such transformed meat cutter, Darga, who, by birth, had no choice but to kill dogs for his livelihood.
Darga is the senior most and very experienced Dog Catcher in VSPCA’s ABC program. He commands respect in his newly-minted profession as an Animal Behaviorist. He has been with VSPCA for 20 years now since Pradeep had helped him understand that he can do better with his life. In his previous line-of-work, he was involved with the municipality, illegally, culling dogs by catching them and injecting them with cyanide. Pradeep visited his house, like he did of others who were involved in similar activities, to convince them to join VSPCA’s ABC program instead of partaking in illegal activity.
Darga is brave. Dog-catching and transport require an able-bodied, brave person to accomplish the remarkable statistics of our ABC Program for the betterment of dogs, cats, and the society in general. He is very fit, like others in the ABC program, as the role requires constant running up and down the hills, beaches, and in bylines to catch dogs upto 5 kilograms of weight. It is a physically demanding job! Darga is also our Chief Trainer for this task, and has been involved with training youth and men in several districts of Andhra Pradesh and the Mumbai municipality. Darga is good at snake rescue and takes care of monkeys!
The primitive method to catch dogs involved ropes; we then transitioned to using gunny sacks which were gentler on the animals. Now, we use dog-catching nets (butterfly net system) which are ideal and do not hurt the dogs that we are trying to help. Our videos may show them panicking – but they remain unharmed and well-cared for, once caught and taken for treatment.
It is remarkable to note that Darga’s dog catching skills are today being applied for the health and well-being of animals, as opposed to using them to abuse and put them to death.
We are grateful to Darga and wish him the best in everything he undertakes with VSPCA and beyond. Thank you Darga!
