‘You Found a Home, I Found Mine’: Inside TBI Employees’ Stories With Rescued Pets |
Have you ever looked into the eyes of a dog that waits for you on the street when you’re late? The way it lights up the moment you turn into the lane, as if you were the only thing it had been waiting for all day. They don’t ask for much. Sometimes, a simple biscuit is enough to feel like a feast.
But if you stay a little longer, if you let them into your routine, your life, it becomes a kind of love that is hard to name.
This National Pet Day, The Better India turns into its own newsroom, its own people to find the ways in which rescued and adopted animals find their way into our lives.
These animals were never “just taken in.” In their own ways, they chose to stay and transformed the lives they entered.
Back in 2018, when Bhawna was coming back home from college one day, a sudden halt in traffic caught her attention. In the middle of the road sat a tiny puppy, frozen in fear, eyes shut tight as vehicles stood still around him. Bhawna parked her scooter and rushed there, picked him up, and carried him to safety.
This was followed by an hour-long search, walking through lanes, knocking on doors, hoping to find his mother or anyone who recognised him. But there was no one.
As she stood there, unsure of what to do next, the puppy clung to her.
The possibility that he had already found his person comes almost automatically.
She bought bread and milk from a nearby shop and fed him. That was all she could do at that moment. Then she settled him safely by the roadside and began to walk away. But Jojo was not ready for that!
He tugged at her scarf, grabbed it with his little mouth as if asking her not to leave. Bhawna, now a social media content manager at The Better India-Hindi, knew then she had to take him home.
Jojo came as a surprise addition to her family and to Buggy, her older dog. A visit to the vet revealed he was barely a month old. Right now, Jojo is the hero of her home, growing alongside Buggy as a companion.
I thought I was the one who brought you home that day. But somewhere along the way, you became the one who filled it with warmth, and a kind of love I didn’t know I needed. I may have given you a home, but you, most certainly, have filled it with love.
Sumi’s team of dogs (Chief: Cuddles)
For Sumi Borah, this story begins in her grandmother’s home.
Growing up, her grandmother’s home was always filled with dogs. And alongside that, she saw her mother feeding, and caring for all the dogs. And in those everyday moments, something........