Dogs at PU campus have good night's sleep on stubble-filled bags

Thanks to a 21-year-old MSc mathematics student of Panjab University, stray dogs on the campus are having a good night’s sleep on gunny bags filled with stubble. There are over 80 stray dogs on the campus spread across two sectors, and students and staffers are kind towards them.

Ritika Kathpal, along with around 10 other students from the campus, has started an initiative to provide these stubble-filled gunny bags for dogs under the name ‘United for Paws’. Ritika, who is a resident of Girls Hostel No. 6, orders the bags from Kurali and visits the spots where dogs rest on the campus and place the bags there. “We make sure that we visit the dogs mostly in the evening to know exactly where they rest in an attempt to save themselves from the harsh winters,” she said.

As of now, she has placed 60 beds on the campus, including the south campus in Sector 25. “According to our observation, there are around 80 stray dogs in PU. I have been ordering these bags regularly which get delivered to me from Kurali on e-rickshaw,” she added.

The students are being helped by security guards and some teachers also in their initiative. According to Ritika, she first started helping the strays at her hometown Jalalabad in Fazilka district of Punjab. With support of her friends and fellow students, she has raised the money to buy the bags, which cost Rs 40 apiece.

Her effort has been appreciated by many students, a large number of whom have also been helping her in evenings with bed placing. “We all wanted to help stray dogs, but it was Ritika who took a step in this direction. We help her as much as we can by joining her in this initiative during the evenings,” a PU student said.

Along with this initiative, she also plans to start feeding dogs, especially who live away from the Student Centre and hostels, where they are not regularly fed by students or hostel residents.