When The World Looked Away From Wounded Stray Dogs, Geeta Picked Them Up - 2000 Times And Saved Them

“I was 6 when I saw my neighbour, cold-faced, hit a stray dog stuck in a gate with an iron rod…until its skull cracked. I was frozen. I still get flashes. That scream still lives in me as a guilt. Years later, I was attacked by a mob for feeding injured puppies dumped in a plastic bag by an auto driver on the street. Despite having vaccinated and sterilized them, they beat me. Tore my clothes. I was bruised, bleeding, and handed over to the police for just feeding them.” - Sai Geetha, Founder of Sharanaksh.

At 6, she watched a dog being beaten to death. At 45, she has rescued over 2000 of them to safety

Sai Geetha recalls these painful moments while a dog under her care undergoes a critical blood transfusion from her rescue shelter, which she built brick by brick, heartbreak by heartbreak.

As children, most of us saw animal cruelty and turned away. Sai Geetha turned toward it. From the age of 8, she began feeding strays with her own pocket money.

The world taught me that stray dogs don’t matter, but I refused to learn that lesson

A dog hit by a vehicle, tossed like trash, lying in a gutter filled with stagnant water, barely breathing. She rushed in, picked him up, blood soaking her clothes, and ran to the nearest vet. He didn’t survive.

“That death connected me to a rescue network. I didn’t know it then, but it was the beginning of everything that followed.

I don’t want to ‘rescue’ endlessly. I want to build a world where rescue isn't needed

In 2018, when every door was shut and every shelter was full, Sai created one herself.
and named it Sharanaksh, from Sharan (shelter) and Raksha (protection).

It began with 8 dogs. It wasn’t a big setup. It was just her, a handful of dogs, and a heart that refused to break, no matter how much was thrown at it. Today, over 200 lives find care, safety, and love under her watch.

She’s rescued and fed over 2,000 dogs. She gave them names. She gave them dignity

I don’t work on numbers. I work on lives. I don’t believe in dumping dogs and walking away. Every dog here is seen and loved here. Given proper medical, nutritional, and psychological care and recovery time. That’s why our mortality rate is so low because here, no dog is just a statistic.

But now, she can’t take in more and dogs are dying because of that

Sharanaksh is tucked away in a rural pocket near Bangalore. In emergencies, the nearest vet is 10 km away. There’s no ambulance. No on-site diagnostics. During power cuts, floods or late-night injuries, most dogs often don’t survive the journey to the clinic. 

They don’t die from their injuries. They die waiting because we can’t reach help in time. When a dog is hit at night, with a bleeding animal in my arms, I keep praying it survives the trip. Many don’t. And those losses crush me every single time.

In a world that normalizes cruelty, Sai’s been rebelling for 20 years with food bowls, bandages, and boundless love

“I want to transform society’s attitude towards stray animals so that they finally see them as lives, not threats, not filth, not inconvenience. But Lives.”

Sai gave up everything, a stable corporate job and a city life. That 6-year-old girl who once watched in silence has now turned into a woman who refuses to stay silent anymore.

Let's build a world where dogs aren’t crushed under tyres, forgotten in gutters, or beaten for existing.