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The story of Animal Aid
Animal Aid grew from a feeling of sadness into an
idea of hope and into a hospital of miracles all because
of…animals!
Animal Aid’s founders realized that with help from people
like you the beautiful, nameless, street-dwelling, often
hungry, ill or injured animals in India can have a chance at
something better. Erika Abrams and Jim Myers with daughter
Claire began living part-time in Udaipur, Rajasthan in the early
1990s. Gradually their stays in Udaipur lengthened, and in 1999
they built a home in the village of Chota Hawala, four
kilometers outside of Udaipur.
Udaipur area had no treatment facility for ownerless animals.
With a population of 400,000, a nearly non-existent garbage
collection system, and a cultural tolerance of street animals,
the street animal population is visible everywhere and one can
see animals suffering from hunger, chronic dehydration, broken
limbs, maggot-infested wounds, mange, and most frustrating of
all, dogs suffering from pregnancy.
In 2002, Animal Aid Unlimited was registered in the USA as a
tax-deductible, 501c3 charitable organization. This mission
of Animal Aid Unlimited is to bring relief to suffering animals.
To date, the majority of funds raised through Animal Aid
Unlimited have served the needs of the Animal Aid Hospital and
its related animal care projects in Udaipur, but when donors
have specified otherwise (for example, disaster relief funding
for tsunami and other natural disasters) we have been grateful
for the chance to help in a variety of locations.
We began by hiring a local Indian man who had been an
outspoken advocate of animals for many years. During the first
six months, he simply walked around the city picking up stray
injured and ill animals and delivering them to a government
animal facility that had inadequate and dirty cages, no
medicine, and a staff who could not be counted on even to
provide regular water. We obtained permission from the facility
for our Animal Aid staff (we didn’t have a name back then!) be
allowed to feed and water the animals.
As Erika and Jim began searching for ideas and money, we sent
Chaman to Jaipur, where an excellent and long-established animal
welfare organization, Help in Suffering, trained him to assist
in surgery. For about a year, he was permitted to assist under
supervision of trained veterinary surgeons both in Help in
Suffering and in the Udaipur Polyclinic. With excellent
advice from Christine Townend of Help in Suffering, Kelly
O’Meara from Humane Society International, Seattle animal
advocates and many many others, we got the confidence to move
ahead with plans to build a hospital.
Dr. Saket Pathak, (Animal Aid's senior veterinary surgeon) came
on board and The Animal Aid Hospital was opened in March 2003.
In the early phase, The Summerlee Foundation gave Animal Aid
$1000 to buy a 10-year-old Fiat car outfitted with a cage for
dog-catching. Bless its dilapidated heart, it enabled us to
sterilize several hundred dogs over the coming months, but it
had a nasty habit of breaking down with a back end full of
frustrated, hot and miserable dogs.
In February 2004, that problem was solved thanks to a
beautiful donation of an ambulance (a Tata 207 Pickup) by
The Brack Family Foundation.
Our story blossoms in a thousand different ways, and each “way”
has either fur or feathers, hooves or tails, bills or muzzles.
Today, 20 staff including three veterinary surgeons make Animal
Aid a life-saving force for thousands of animals every year.
Meet our fantastic staff and some of the friends who have
volunteered with us so far…
L-R/Top row: Ganpath, Suresh.
2nd row: Claire, Dr. Saket, Dr. Suresh, Kamla.
3rd row: Sonu, Erika, Dilip.
4th row: Davendre, Chaman, VirmaRam, Dr. Mahesh, Gaju, Laxman.
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Mama Dog, mother of many of our village companions, was the first dog to
be sterilized by AAS.
Puppies like these
will cost their
mother her life, and will more
than likely die
soon after weaning.
Our sterilization program prevents
this
suffering and gives dogs a
fair chance at life.
Because Udaipur’s waste management
is completely inadequate to the city’s needs, plastic garbage is everywhere.
Roaming large animals ingest the garbage in their search for food and most of
them suffer from intestinal problems as a result.
Our first staff member, Chaman, observes an elephant being treated at the government hospital.
L-R: Barbara Brack, Reg Brack, P.S. Rathore, Laxman Rathore, and Jim Myers. The Bracks’
donation of this TATA 207 ambulance enabled Animal Aid to increase its
productivity about 200 percent.
The main operating theatre is toward the back;
the monkey habitat is to the right, and most of the kennels are below left (not
seen from this view.)
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