Saved Beagles get rave reviews from delighted owners

Krishnan regrets the use of his favourite audio cassettes as teething material but is a beaming paternal figure when he talks about how friendly the Beagles are. Ten years ago, he had nursed back to health an abandoned golden retriever who had been shot at by a departing Russian diplomat.Jugnu and Koel, who like Coco and Popo were spared the drug-testers, have been adopted by Chandana Bawa and Jaswant Singh. Bawa is an ex-museum curator and her husband Jaswant is a medical practitioner. They adopted Jugnu and Koel around the time that the mixed-breed Alsatian at home had just had a litter of eight. “The Beagle duo was so scared upon arrival that they just flattened themselves on the floor of the car. They’d cringe every time you tried to reach out to them. They were undernourished and Jugnu used to walk with a slight limp. Ranbaxy claimed to have provided them with good living conditions but two months are gone and the edge has still not worn off their hunger.” When Bawa feeds her “children”, she employs a dancing step: She holds the two plates aloft and executes a shuffle to the front to distract the two and then a quick step backwards while simultaneously putting down the dog bowls. “It takes me more time to mix their food than they take to eat it.” And, sure enough, Jugnu and Koelprovided us with a demonstration, wolfing down their food within a count of 10.

Entrusted with providing suitable homes for the dogs, animal shelter Frendicoes clocked 600 requests on the very first day. Geeta Seshamani, who runs the shelter, recounts: “The Beagles had never been out of a lab and the Ranbaxy people had scared us so much that we almost thought that they wouldn’t be able to survive Delhi’s harsh weather. When we first got them out they were scared to death of sounds. They needed personal care and we had a tough time sending polite refusals to people who would have probably entrusted the dogs to domestic helpers who may not necessarily have been dog-lovers.”

Seshamani is happy with her `placements’ and is planning a Beagle party in the near future, now that several teething problems have been overcome.“I got several anxious calls from the foster `parents’ that the Beagle constantly looks at its reflection in the mirror. We encouraged adoption of pairs as the dogs had known the company of none other. Several families went in for pairs. The result was tremendous: The dogs were much happier. Then there were panic calls that the dog doesn’t bark. But thank God that happened to be a characteristic of the breed.”