In March of 2020, Braj Animal Care’s Vishakha Ramos took seven puppies to the animal hospital in a nearby city. The puppies were all suffering from parvo, a deadly disease, and the treatment took many hours. The hospital was technically closed when Vishakha finally took off her medical gloves and went to wash her hands.
In order to reach the hand wash area, she had to cross a huge, warehouse-like room where the large animals are usually treated. It was there that Vishakha found a single calf standing by herself. She looked so lost and out of place, that Vishakha’s immediate impulse was to go and comfort her. She crouched down, placing her forehead on the calf’s forehead, and petted the calf for some time before returning to the puppies, whose treatment was still going on.
After a while, Vishakha was approached by one of the hospital’s resident doctors. To her surprise, the doctor asked Vishakha if she could take a calf home with her! It was the same calf Vishakha had seen earlier. Someone had beaten mercilessly in the leg with a stick, fracturing her leg. Thereafter, her owner brought her to the hospital, but abandoned her when he realised the extent of her injuries. Once a cast was applied to the broken leg, the calf wandered the hospital grounds alone for three days.
Vishakha had no doubt that she had to take the calf, who was later named Gopi, back to Vrindavan. The problem was, she had no vehicle with which to transport Gopi. At present, Braj Animal Care doesn’t have an ambulance, and the car they rented that day was not only small, but already quite packed with seven puppies, two volunteers, the driver and Vishakha herself. Nevertheless, Vishakha offered to hold Gopi in her lap in the passenger seat of the car, to get her home as soon as possible! With no other alternative, two other doctors lifted Gopi and placed her Vishakha’s arms, and they all went home to Vrindavan.
That evening, Braj Animal Care arranged for Gopi to be housed in a local cow shelter where she is being looked after extremely well. We hear that she likes to wander around and explore her new home, which will now be her permanent place of residence.
We are delighted that Gopi is happy and safe, however there are so many other animals out there that need our help. In this case, Vishakha was lucky that Gopi remained calm. Animals do not always have this kind of docile nature, and obviously, carrying calves in one’s lap is not the recommended mode of transportation! We are desperately in need of an ambulance to help our team and our animal friends get around safely.