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First Posted: 4/29/2015
MEHOOPANY —Indra Lahiri’s mom has told her she didn’t cry until she was 5 years old.
“We had a dog named Panda, a boxer,” Lahiri said. “And whenever I would need anything, when I was hungry or needed a diaper change, Panda would go and get my mother. She was my nanny dog.”
That early connection may have been a clue to Lahiri’s future. Ten years ago she founded the Indraloka Animal Sanctuary, giving it a Sanskrit name that indicates it’s a “heaven on earth” for animals that need a home.
Today some 200 creatures, including horses and cows, chickens and pigs, turkeys and geese, plenty of cats and even a peacock, all have found a safe haven on 30 acres in rural Wyoming County.
“One of my missions in life is to urge people to listen more carefully to animals,” said Lahiri, who will lead a workshop on animal communication May 17 at the Wellspring House, a holistic wellness center in Tunkhannock.
Leading a pair of visitors on a recent tour of the sanctuary, Lahiri talked to the animals just as you’d speak to humans.
“If you’re that hot, Honey, go back inside,” she suggested to a turkey named Louise whose breathing pattern indicated she was not enjoying the sunny afternoon.
Moments later, Lahiri knelt by another turkey, Lonny, whose wing had been severely damaged by a predator on a farm where he was being raised for meat.
As she stroked his feathers, she pointed out the coloring of his head was steadily becoming more red. “The brighter it is,” she said, “the happier he is.”
Anyone can become more aware of how animals are feeling, Lahiri said as she introduced various creatures and told their stories.
Izzy, the tail-wagging Rottweiler, was rescued as a puppy from a home where dogs had been forced to fight.
Mookie the calf was born on a beef farm, where his mother was taken to slaughter without anyone noticing her baby out in the field. He would have starved to death without intervention.
A pig Lahiri calls Eddy Traffic has one of the most dramatic stories. “He made the news in Parsippany, New Jersey, when he jumped off a truck headed to slaughter,” Lahiri said. “It was on Route 80 during rush hour.”
Stroking Eddy Traffic’s coarse hair, Lahiri greeted him with affectionate baby talk and was pleased to note he responded in kind, with a high-pitched squeal, not as deep as the sounds he directed toward another pig — a companion he may have considered a rival for attention.
“Society puts boundaries between humans and the natural world,” Lahiri said. But if you pay attention to animals with an open mind, she said, you’ll become more perceptive.
So if someone were to attend the upcoming animal communication seminar, they might learn how to stop a pet from, say, chewing up the shoes of a newcomer to the household.
“First, you’d have to find out what’s going on with them, just like with a beloved child,” Lahiri said. “Are they feeling anxious? Do they need some nutrition they’re not getting?”
Or maybe an animal is feeling playful. That was Lahiri’s explanation when Mookie the calf jumped up onto a photographer the way a large dog might leap onto a person. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, pulling Mookie away. “I think he’s missing his playmate,” she said, referring to a goat that had died.
Lahiri, 45, who holds a doctorate in psychology, gave up a consulting job last year to devote herself full-time to the sanctuary, where a core group of 10 volunteers, supplemented by about another 60 occasional volunteers, help keep the place running.
Generous donors help pay the sanctuary’s annual $30,000 feed bill and $40,000 vet bills and some veterinary care is donated as well, Lahiri said. Wegmans from Dickson City regularly donates crates of unsold vegetables, all of them fresh and many of them organic. “It’s terrific.”
Speaking of donations, Lahiri said a benefactor who wishes to remain anonymous recently pledged to match, up to $200,000, every dollar given to Indraloka, as well as non-monetary donations such as repairing a shed. “This is a great time to donate,” she said. “Everything counts double.”
Admitting a fondness for literature, Lahiri introduced a mule she had named Donkey Hotay, after Cervantes’ character Don Quixote, and said the full name of Izzy, the dog, is Isolde, which comes from a medieval legend.
Inviting three “geriatric horses” to turn around and get acquainted, Lahiri got no response from two of them. That was OK, she said. She doesn’t want to force animals to do anything, she said, and she gave up riding horses, though she has no quarrel with those who do ride. Or with those who eat meat.
“Everyone is on a journey,” she said. “I’m not wise enough to tell everyone in the world where they should be on their journey.”
In addition to earning her doctorate in psychology Lahiri, who grew up in Rochester, New York, worked on a Ph.D. in anthropology, which led to her spending some time with the Anishinaabe people of Minnesota. The way they respected all living creatures felt right to her, confirming something she believed herself.
“The Lakota people have a saying with two translations, ‘We are all related’ and ‘I pray for all my relatives.’ The Anishinaabe believe that, too.”
Recognizing that Lahiri felt a similar connection to animals, she said, “the elders told me I must have been a member of the tribe, or a related tribe, in a past life.”