I am Deeya Choudhary, 22, born and raised in Bhopal. I am a filmmaker, artist, and entrepreneur. I manage two agencies of my own – Soch Films and Publicity, where we produce films and ads, and Deeya Solutions which is engaged in digital marketing and website development work. I am also the president of an NGO, Ayaan Welfare Society, where we actively engage in animal welfare and women empowerment initiatives. Apart from that I have recently started my online store where I sell my designs printed on a variety of products.
I live with my parents, my grand-mother who travels to and fro between India and the US every six months, my fiancé Shasham, along with three house helps, and of course our nine fur babies. We have a split-storey house, which means every half floor has a room or a hall, which now seems to be a bummer because there is only one big hall on the ground floor, and then stairs and rooms. There is enough space in our driveway and on the terrace for the dogs to move around and play freely. Three out of the nine are labradors – mother, father and daughter. The father, Yuvraj, suffers from hip dysplasia, which means he should not be climbing stairs a lot. For that we have a dog door on the ground floor, so that none of them climb the stairs., since I’m also concerned about the daughter, Miha, who could get it from her father genetically, although she is almost four years old now and shows no red signals, but better safe than sorry. So yes, there is enough space, but of course, any amount seems less when you have nine furries on the move.
We have always had dogs in our house, my parents and their parents, all of them are pet lovers. There has been no time in my life when there wasn’t a dog in our house. Having said that, we always have one or two, and even though my parents are dog lovers themselves, nine dogs can get on their nerves sometimes. We work hard to manage things in a way where both the dogs and the humans are happy.
It all started in 2013, when I gifted my boyfriend, who’s now my fiancé, an adopted lab puppy who we named Rihana. She was our baby and she travelled everywhere with us. Shasham also rented a new apartment because his previous place was not dog-friendly. Then one day while I was going somewhere, I saw two huge stray dogs fighting and tugging over a small puppy. I pulled over and saved her from them and took her to the doctor. She had a wound, which was the size of almost her entire body, and she was weak and unwell. I took her to Shasham’s place and we placed her in an empty room with food, water and a bed. She didn’t sleep and kept crying, so Shasham took her to his room and comforted her and massaged her to sleep. She sleeps in his lap, or near his neck ever since. Rihana and Miley became best friends. When we took them for their vaccination, we saw a lab puppy being shown to some customers in that pet shop and we fell in love with him. We sat there for almost an hour and played with him, which meant us massaging and rubbing him because he was so lazy. We came back home, but we could not get him out of our heads. We kept reminding each other the practical reasons for not getting him, but we just could not hold ourselves. Four hours after we first saw him, we went back and got him. And that is how in three months, we went from zero to three dogs, no fixed income, and not so friendly landlord. The first few months were manageable. The problem started when we were not able to take them for proper walks, and the flat was on the 5th floor, which gave them no place to pee and poop when we were out. Me and Shasham washed the entire house every evening. The area was such that we could not find a house help, and with them growing up, the neighbors became an issue. So Shasham decided to shift. We found a house very close to my house, which has a small garden, a driveway and was overall really huge. Life became a little better. Then again, the neighbours. We were handling them but they became a bigger trouble everyday. One of Shasham’s friends fell in love with Rihana and took her with him. It was really difficult for her but we figured it was for her own good since his house has a huge huge garden which Rihana loved. Shasham eventually had to move out of that house, so Yuvraj and Miley shifted to my place. We had a Lhasa-Apso and a Persian cat. They adjusted quickly and were way more happier than before with humans being around 24/7, and since Shasham also came by everyday, they were not missing him either. We always kept in touch with Rihana and visited her often, and almost every other day saw her pictures which the friend sent. After a few months, the friend started ghosting on us, was not sending pictures, and kept ignoring Shasham’s call. We tried for two weeks after which Shasham lost his cool and confronted him. Turns out he had given her away to someone in Indore. We forced him to get her back and the next day she came back by bus with a dirty jute rope around her and she was weak and scared. We got her home. My father saw her and said let’s just keep her and she should not go through more trauma. It took us a month to get her fear out, and to get her skin infections treated. We pampered her so much that she is now a brat. Then Rihana gave birth to her first litter, all adorable and healthy puppies, except one who had a skin infection on her back, which the doctor said was due to the deep-rooted skin infections that Rihana had earlier. So that baby got extra love and care since we were constantly cleaning her, applying meds and taking her out in the sun. At seven weeks old, it was time for them to go. I tried my best to find them homes, but failed and ultimately gave them to a trusted pet store who had agreed to take them all. A few hours after I left them at the store, however, I got a call from the owner who said that one of them was not eating and seemed ill. I rushed back and it was her, the one that had the infection. They were trying to feed her all sorts of things, and she rejected everything. As soon as I reached, she was jumping on me. I picked her up and she grabbed my neck with her paws and just did not let go. I sat there, tried to feed her, play with her, but she just did not let go of me. I brought her home, and four years later, she is still with us. And to tell you, she was not ill at all. As soon as she reached home, she was running and jumping and eating like no one’s business. So for three years, this was our family – Candy (the Apso), Miley, Yuvraj and Rihana. Last year in September, one of my friends saw a puppy stuck in a hole. He jumped in to get her out and gave her to me. I went to Shasham with a puppy face and he said okay. My plan was to keep her in our other house which is just a few houses away from our house, where all of our help and their families live. But she got attached to me and more than that I got attached to her. I was going through a bad phase myself and she just became my healer. So then there were six. And then in March this year, Miley gave birth to three fur balls. She is an Indie and she should have been spayed, but because of some medical conditions, we could not. The three babies were obviously very cute and adorable, because of which I kept away from them. I knew I would fall in love with them. My grandmother had already found homes for them, her relatives who live in a nearby city. They were supposed to leave when they were six weeks old, and then 2020 happened. We could not travel because of the lockdown for weeks, and during those weeks, I started spending time with them. As they grew up, they started moving around more parts of the house and my self-control failed. So yeah, they ended up not going either.
