During a very hot day in Dubai Anand Raman was heading to meet with his sister, when he happened across a young dog desperately seeking shade underneath the parked cars of his sister’s office building. The dog looked lost and desperate, and upon seeing the poor pooch he could not resist bringing him home, no animal deserves to be abandoned or live as a stray.
As Anand headed towards the dog, completely unexpectedly the dirty, exhausted, and desperate little creature, upon seeing him, ran eagerly to him as though he were a long-lost friend. The poor pup was clearly looking for friendship and kindness and had seen it in Anand. So much so that when he was rescued he fell right to sleep on Anand’s shoulder and refused to move.
“He was under a car eating scraps some of her workers had left for him, His fur was matted and his legs weren’t quite right.” Anand recalls, whilst speaking with The Dodo, “He approached me with a curious but excited disposition, wagging his tail excitedly, This demeanor of his is what initially made me fall in love with him. We then sat there for a while on the sidewalk and he was content just receiving pets from me for a while, I carried him into the car and he immediately fell asleep on my shoulder.”
It was just an average day until he walked into that car park, Anand had never imagined he would be walking back out of there with a new friend, having saved the life of an innocent creature from a life of begging, hiding, and searching for the next meal.
Immediately after leaving that car park and with the help of his brother-in-law and sister took his new pup straight to a veterinary clinic where they had discovered that the reason for the dog appearing to struggle when walking and moving around, was because he had rickets in his front legs.
Rickets is caused by severe malnutrition and can result in; stunted growth, bone fractures, cramps, teeth deformities, bow legs, or an oddly shaped skull, along with several other physical deformations. it can also cause tenderness and pain, but is easily treated with the proper diet and provision of the correct vitamins and nutrients to speed up their body’s recovery. Fortunately for this pup, they were able to recover easily and have not been left with any long-term effects.
“He was exhausted when I first got him,” Anand recounts to The Dodo. “which is why he fell asleep right away in the car ride to the hospital. I was surprised to find out that his fur was actually pure white after all the dirt and grime came off his body.”
Once the young pooch had finally been cleaned off, Anand took one look and his shining white fur and decided to name him Snowy. This name had also been inspired by the faithful dog found in the comic “The Adventures of Tintin”.
After what is assumed to have been a very long time of begging and finding any means to survive on the streets, Snowy has struggled to understand that he was finally safe in Anand’s care, and so gaining his trust had been a very slow process. Snowy had simply sat in the far corner of the room on first arriving home, as he didn’t understand that he had found his safe haven and that nothing could harm him here.
“Getting him adapted to a house at first wasn’t easy,” Raman said to The Dodo. “He wasn’t sure where to go and what to explore, so he’d just sit in a corner.”
Not only did Snowy have to adapt to living inside a loving home and get used to the idea that he wasn’t trapped but cared for, but he also had to get to grips with being outside again when being taken on his daily walks. According to Anand, Snowy had seemed absolutely terrified to be walking on the streets again, as though he was afraid that he would end up right back where he started. It was with plenty of patience as well as positive reinforcement that Anand was able to slowly help snowy to understand that he would never live on the streets again.
“When I would take him for walks, he was constantly terrified that I was going to leave him back on the streets, so he would yank his leash away from me and run back into the parking lot of our building complex,” Raman added. “This happened for a while until he realized we were not going to let him go anywhere fast.”
Little by little the trust that Snowy had shown Anand that faithful day when he had met him in the car park slowly built up. 2 months later Snowy was finally able to trust Anand to care for him and look after him. He no longer looks to Anand as another man who might give him scraps, but as a father, who loves him very much, and will never abandon him.
“He sleeps and waits for us to get home from work, which is when he showers us with love and we reciprocate the same with him, he also gels amazingly well with any dog he comes across and is very well-behaved with kids and guests,” Anand said proudly.
After all the hardship he had been through and the difficulty of adjusting to a new life, Snowy still loves to curl up next to his father and go to sleep, or even just snuggle up by his side even when he’s not tired.
