Charlie Animal Rescue Center is one of the few heart-touching spots to visit in Bangalore for animal lovers out there. I’ve been to many places in Bangalore but this stood out amongst all. The plan to visit was out of the blue for me but I wish to go there soon again.
While the rest of my blogs are on travel or writing, this one definitely deserves a say. Lucky for me, Charlie CARE is a walkable distance from my University (800 meters). Now I shall be visiting it now and then. Who knows – I can turn out to be a volunteer there one day!
Yes, anyone can be a volunteer as long as you genuinely love animals. I found their website – Charlie’s CARE – where you can apply for volunteering by submitting a google form application.
Due to a lack of knowledge, all I did was visit the center. I’ve visited dog cafes before and let me tell you, it isn’t a similar experience. Most animals here have faced trauma before, abandonment, or have some form of a disability. Yet most still love getting petted which shows us the world of love.
While I’d love to help, being a Uni student, there’s not much I can do. But I sure can help spread the word :) Apart from volunteering, they give you a variety of options to help out. You can adopt, passive adopt, sponsor for feeding, collaborate in some way, and so many other ways.
Before you get too excited like I did when I did on my visit, helping out doesn’t apply to all animals in the center. For example, they don’t let you adopt permanent residence dogs.
Well, I shall talk about it in this post.
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Visit Charlie Animal Rescue center in the mornings
The times for visiting are from 11 am to 4 pm. It’s best to visit as early as possible. You’ll get to see the volunteers playing with the animals, bathing them, or attending to them for some reason. The mornings are when everyone is active here.
When I visited at 2 or so, all the dogs had had their food and were just too lazy to say ‘Hi’ to me – or they just didn’t like me. However, they did come around in the end. You wouldn’t have an issue with cats – they sleep all day anyhow. But one particular cat was active. The moment I sat down, it came up onto my lap and slept. Motion detected.
Apart from the dogs and cats, I saw some birds in their own spaces and a fish aquarium (I’m not sure if they were part of the rescue center). The point is – just visit the animal rescue center in the morning. Since it opens late at 11 am, 11:30 would be an ideal time to visit. The volunteers would be more than happy to show you around.
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Animals they let you adopt
Charlie animal rescue center is laid out on a large area and a portion of it is devoted to permanent residence canines. With some being aggressive or with serious health conditions, these canines are not let for adoption. Or they don’t let visitors touch them either.
But since dogs are emotional beings, they’re all attended to regularly. All the permanent resident dogs had their own colorful spaces to sleep in. I could only see them from the other side of the barriers. And then there were the friendly dogs that they let us touch.
Like I said, some dogs were dozing away at the time as they’d all just had their food. Anyway, it was beautiful and sad to see the dogs wagging their tails when we walked in while some couldn’t even walk right. Whatever they’re doing at this animal rescue center to take care of these animals, they’re doing a wonderful job.
Pups you can adopt
All the younger furry paws had their own section – two actually. One section wasn’t let for visitors – the volunteer told us the pups were vulnerable to the outer environment. We could just see them from far. But the other section was where visitors were let in and we could play with the pups.
Not to mention, we could adopt pups from here. I went in and sat down with the pups for a while. The pups were lovely until I accidentally put my hand in a puddle of pup piss when getting up. Oops! After washing my hands, we moved on to the cats – my personal favorite.
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Cats to adopt
If I remember right, all the cats can be adopted. Correct me if I’m wrong later. Two small cozy spots were allocated for all the cats. One was for the kittens and the other for the adults. The adult cats here were again all special ones.
Some were blind and one didn’t have an ear. One seemed perfectly fine until it stood up and walked over with three legs. I sat down here as well. The coolest part of it was that as soon as I sat down, one of the blind cats walked up straight up to me and lay down on my lap!
Was it because I was a cat person? Or did the cat just sense out a lap nearby to sit upon? I’ll never know. But the fact still amazes me and I sat there for 10 minutes straight.
Then we went to the kittens’ room. There were just 3 kittens here. The small one (or should I say ‘smol’) on my lap below was 30 days old and hyperactive too! That is, hyperactive until it settled down on me and another large kitten decided to sleep on it.
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Tailpiece
Coming to the end, to those who love animals, give this place a visit. I’ve been to pet shops and this is a whole different world. These are beautiful sweet creatures who’ve been through harsh conditions, abuse, and hell.
I’d been looking forward to visiting it for a long time and Google Maps indicated it as Cat Studio. It’s one and the same. But Charlie animal rescue center is a better fit. If I was staying all by myself, I’d definitely adopt a cat. But I’m not.
Maybe you can. So does everyone say, ‘adopt, don’t shop!’.
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