A volunteer group has set up a project to feed hundreds of dogs home-cooked food every week.
The Zero Stray Project, an NGO based in Puchong, Malaysia, spend hours each day cooking massive amounts of food for stray animals in the area.
Dhebanathan Karuppiah, 25, a cyber security engineer who permanently volunteers said: “It started from ten dogs, to 20, to 30 and now we feed around 300 dogs weekly.
“We pick a few zones to feed the strays where it is very difficult to get food, such as in industrial areas.”
There are are over a thousand stray dogs and cats in Puchong, of which they feed 300 to 350 strays every week and an additional 30 to 40 dogs every single day.
Dheban and his team spend around seven hours cooking and packaging chicken, rice and vegetables for the stray animals with the money from their own pockets.
Each feeding compromises of 50 kilograms of chicken, five kilograms of liver, 25 kilograms of rice and 4 kilograms of vegetables.
Dheban highlighted that the increasing abandonment that contributes the number of strays start with the consumer.
He said: “Mongrels are very strong and tough breeds and the problem is there are so many numbers of them, and because of this the demand reduces.
“Please don’t support breeding companies who breed dogs such as German Shepherds or Shih Tzus because it is affecting our ecosystems.
“These dogs are not supposed to be in hot weather such as in Malaysia. Without knowing, you are torturing these dogs.
“When you support the breeding centres, who’s going to adopt the mongrels?”
The Zero Stray Project have also rescued injured strays with infections or viruses and provides them with the proper medical treatment.
Most of the time strays develop maggot infections or viruses and so the volunteers immediately bring these animals to the vet and pay for the necessary treatment.
The lockdown following Covid caused a great lack of help because people could not travel to the location. The team faced financial problems from losing work after Covid hit and lacked funding.
There is a lot of reliance from the public on NGOs care for stray animals. The team mentioned a past incident where a woman called the them demanding that they fed a group of strays in an area four hours away from where they were located.
The team reacted calmly and contacted another NGO located nearby the area of concern and asked if they could take a look.
The Zero Stray Project needs as much funding as possible to care for the strays that rely on their generous volunteering spirit. Visit this link to donate. No amount is too little.
