The attendant at the ‘North East Aquorium’ picks up Matt Too by the scruff of his neck and puts him on his cage, a tiny cramped enclosure, for viewing. MT has skin disease and a ‘bad liver’ says the pet shop owner. In Guwahati’s many ‘pet shops’, MT is just one of the many animals that suffer. His sad, accusing eyes are of no concern — for anybody. Picture by UB Photos

The measure of a society can be how well its people treat its animals — Mahatma Gandhi

Guwahati, Oct. 2: He’s been in this cage, maybe three feet by two by one-and-a-half, where he has a problem turning. He’s been there for at least two months now, maybe more. How do we know? We have seen him a couple of times in his enclosure, off and on, driving past. He’s now scrawny, thin, has skin disease and worms, and is down to his bones.

Matt Too is a Labrador pup up for sale on Guwahati’s dusty, busy Rajgarh Road. We’ve decided to name him Matt Too, or MT, after Matt, a stray who was picked up by nine-year old Zaynab, a Guwahati girl, some months ago. With a loving home taking care of him, Matt recently made it to the runner-up spot in the Peta’s Cutest Indian Dog Alive contest.

MT’s situation is quite different, though. Ask the attendant of the “pet shop” North East Aquorium (well, that’s what the sign says) that boasts of “All Pure Breed Pups”, about MT and Ajit Talukdar will hold him up by his scruff for your viewing, like a dead carcass, like poultry for the table.

Unknown to MT, who is wide-eyed, bewildered, tired, has a bad stomach, he carries a price tag he can’t carry on his neck: “Rs 14,500,” says Ajit. “But we can give it to you for say Rs 13,500.” MT is being treated with “some medicine and coconut oil,” Ajit says.

“Keeping the pup in that cage for so long only means that its natural growth is now stunted,” says Mrinal Das, senior veterinarian. “Why should you restrain dogs? They weren’t born with chains round their necks.”

“I don’t even know how to react,” says Murchana Barooah, landscape contractor, dog breeder and owner of 30 dogs. “For my dogs who live in air-conditioned rooms, the leash is a thing of pleasure. They bring it to us because they want to go for a walk.”

Even as the state’s high and mighty gathered around the Mahatma’s statues on Gandhi Jayanti, no one from the establishment seemed to have any time for how MT lives. Or for that matter, how so many of his friends — fish, birds, rabbits and pooches — live in Guwahati’s “pet stores”, caged in by dusty streets. No one really knows how many have been brought in and from where, and how many have died and why and how. At Unique Pets, a pet store on Zoo Tiniali, about 15-20 Australian Badrika parakeets are lodged inside a cage while nine rabbits, most of them kits, live in an enclosure outside, exposed to the heat, dust and of course, noise.

Parakeets are comfortable between 20 and 25 degrees Celsius. This year, Guwahati touched 40 degrees. Today’s maximum was 32 degrees Celsius. At Sea World in Ambari, the birds and fish are brought from Calcutta. “While closing the store, we leave the fan on,” said a salesperson. That’s the best that Guwahati’s pet shop animals can hope for.

“The animal welfare board monitors pet shops,” says Utpal Bharadwaj, officer on special duty to veterinary minister Khorsing Engti. “Pet shops have to go by Peta norms. The veterinary department doesn’t have much to do with them.”

“Yes, we monitor such pet shops and if any dog is found in a bad condition, we talk to the owners and at times even lodge complaints at the nearest police station. Generally, we rescue dogs from owners by forcefully taking them away and giving them treatment,” says Benazir Suraiya from Peta India.

There don’t seem to be any rules that can monitor Guwahati’s “pet shops”.

Ask Ajit for MT’s Indian kennel club certificate and age and the reply goes, “Actually the original papers are lost. A new certificate will take three months and another Rs 1,000. The pup is three months and 10 days old.”

The owner of the “pet shop”, Tapan Haloi, has a different story: “The dog has liver problems. We put it out on the street in the evening to let it get some fresh air.” And MT’s price has come down a little since the afternoon when we got its photograph. As has its age. “It’s just over two months old. We’ll sell it for Rs 10,000,” says Haloi.

In Guwahati’s often heartless pet business, MT the pup is on the verge of becoming a casualty.