Animal Aid Unlimited | Sanctuary

Animal Rescue and Sanctuary in Udaipur

Animal Aid is a vital rescue center, hospital and sanctuary for injured and ill street animals in Udaipur, Rajasthan, India. We rescue thousands of hurt and sick animals each year and provide sanctuary to those who need life-long care.

Our Mission:

The mission of Animal Aid Unlimited is to rescue and treat the un-owned street animals of India who have become ill or injured, and through their rescue inspire a community to protect and defend the lives of all animals.

We operate one of India’s most active rescue services, responding to more than 50 calls on our helpline every day and involving thousands of Udaipur residents in the process of rescuing street animals every year. (Read more about our street animal rescue here).

Like the majority of cities across India, before Animal Aid Unlimited was founded in 2002, Udaipur had no rescue service for street animals, nor was there a hospital or shelter for street animals. This meant that wounded and suffering animals were left to suffer where they lay. We now know that the animals were neglected not because no one cared, but because without an ambulance or a professional medical team to call on, it was very hard for even a caring person to know what to do when they saw a suffering animal.

Our mission is to replace apathy and neglect with protection. And by building a request-response culture, Animal Aid is teaching the local community that it is deeply satisfying to help a suffering animal. Feeling –and really BEING—a part of saving the life of a street animal changes each of us. We become more eager to help the next, and more willing and able to imagine the suffering of the millions of animals we can save by preventing their suffering in all the choices we make with our lives.

By offering the community free-of-cost street animal rescue, we not only rescue hundreds of animals every month, but we create a vital moment of action: When a resident of Udaipur sees an animal who needs help, instead of ignoring that suffering and walking away, our rescue service encourages them to stop and help.

By providing a phone number someone can call and a shelter who will help and save, we are inspiring action. Action that though small at first, maybe just a phone call on our helpline, is the first step on the road of becoming an animal protector.

Our ultimate goal is equality and protection of all animals and a complete end to the use and abuse of animals. We are working for the day that every dog, donkey, cow, pig, fish and mouse can live their lives in freedom.

Who are the animals we rescue

Thousands of dogs, cows, donkeys and other animals live on the street in Udaipur alone, and millions across India. In the region where Animal Aid works in Udaipur, Rajasthan, the animal’s presence on the street is generally accepted, and feeding street animals is even a part of the culture.

However, as traffic increases and the city expands, life can be a daily struggle for many animals on the street. Street dogs survive off of human left overs in India much as they have done for thousands of years (more than 10,000 years!) They find left-overs from restaurants and markets, and also enjoy food left especially for them by kind neighbors. There is a popular tradition in this region for the first and last chapatti (piece of bread) to be given to a cow and a dog.

While some street dogs live in quiet colonies with little traffic, others live near busy intersections where they search for food from garbage dumps and risk their live simply crossing the street. Their population grows in relation to the availability of food.

The life of a little family of puppies often goes like this: While there might have been adequate food from caring neighbors and a local garbage heap, a mother’s four growing puppies quickly discover mama’s milk is not nearly enough, but there’s nothing else to eat.

Their mother gives everything she can to sustain them, but by the time they’re a couple of months old, she’s thin, growing thinner, and often dies of hunger. Often, all but one of the puppies dies too. The little survivor has lost every family member. There’s only enough food for the one—the one who used to be his mama.

Puppies born onto the street are almost always destined to horrible deaths from primarily road accidents and lack of food.Cows and bulls become strays when they have been dumped on the street by Dairies because they are no longer productive (female cows who are no longer profitable and male calves soon after being born.)

Because there are no grazing grounds in the city, the cows and bulls forage for food from garbage bins along with the dogs, however along with finding bits of food here and there, they consume enormous amounts of plastic, so much so that every cow who has been living on the street for more than a few months has dozens of kgs of plastic trapped in their stomach that they cannot digest.

How to help

Your help will save lives today and far into the future.

Compassionate action can take many forms. Become a monthly donor for support that helps us plan for the future. Volunteer with us to directly help take care of the 700 animals at our shelter, or adopt one of our rescues. Sponsor an animal in our sanctuary, memorialize your beloved pet or leave a legacy for Animal Aid in your will.

The animals need you, and we want to make it easy for you to turn your desire to help into powerful action that saves lives.

Become a monthly donor to support our work into the future, save an animal’s life in honor of a beloved pet, or buy a gift of beautiful jewelry in support of our work.

For questions about your donations or different donation methods, check out our FAQs or write to us at donations@animalaidunlimited.org.

Volunteer

Incredible animals are waiting for you in our hospital and sanctuary!

Volunteers play a special role in the welfare of our animals, both those living here permanently and those who are temporarily in our hospital. They comfort injured animals, assist with physio and hydrotherapy, feed orphaned calves, brush handicapped donkeys and much more. You can come and volunteer for a few hours, a few days or a few months – no booking required!

Volunteering with us is easy!

You don’t have to send an application and there are no fees. You are always welcome.

If you’re planning to come for a period longer than a week or in a group of 4+ people, we would appreciate if you could give a heads-up using the form below.

Volunteer contact form

Sponsor an animal

Become a guardian to one of the special needs animals in our sanctuary.

When an animal is too fragile to fend for herself on the street, or has been rescued from an abusive situation, she or he deserves life-long protection and safety, medical care and love. Help us take care of our permanent residents by sponsoring one of them!

You will receive a personalized Certificate of Sponsorship with a beautiful photo of your Sponsored animal that you (or the person you’re gifting it to) can print and frame. We’ll also send you a letter including information about your Sponsored friend.