Title - 26/11 survivor dog overcomes trauma, flanked by visitors

26/11 was the day Sheru stopped eating leftover vegetarian puffs from outside a popular restaurant at CST station. The next day onwards, his daily diet comprised rice, chicken, dalia, milk and biscuits and they came to him in steel utensils. That is how life changed for this chubby, mostly quiet, cream-and-white pooch after a bullet fired by Kasab or his friend grazed his left shoulder and instantly changed his address to a squarish blue enclosure at Parel’s Bai Sakarbai Dinshaw Petit Hospital for Animals.
    Though the wound is now visible only as a small gash, it seems to add to Sheru’s quiet appeal as he sits alone inside the roughly 15 ft by 20 ft enclosure. The nameplate on his enclosure reads “Injured in 26/11 terrorist attack— Sheru”. He is the only animal to have survived the attacks.
    “He is an international hero now,” said J C Khanna, secretary of the Bombay Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, of which the hospital is a part. While passing through the leafy hospital campus, visitors invariably stop and stare at this four-legged terror attack victim, as if searching in his body language the canine’s approval of the apex court’s decision to uphold Kasab’s death sentence.
“He is very friendly with humans but is slightly wary of other animals. After all, he is not used to being with animals,” says Khanna. On the night of 26/11, Sheru was wandering outside Re-fresh restaurant at CST as usual, when the two gunmen opened fire and one of the bullets scraped Sheru’s shoulder. Passersby led local photographer, Shripad Naik, who was present there, towards the wounded and distressed dog.
    The photographer immediately called for an ambulance and carried Sheru out. “Sheru was unconscious all the way to the hospital. I thought he was going to die,” recalled Naik. An X-ray revealed a wound about six inches long and one inch deep. The doctors did not stitch the wound fearing infection. The open injury took about eight months to heal.
    Sheru, who was used to daily cacophony, developed a fear of loud noises. “He would earlier flinch, but is now over it and is quite healthy and playful,” says Naik. The attacks also claimed two sniffer dogs and several pigeons outside the Taj.
    Today, Sheru sits inside an enclosure with a separate roofed space where he plays with donated stuffed toys.