Gia, Gemma, Grace, Frances and Faith were born on the streets of Delhi in India last February.
Gia has a confident easy going personality, Gemma is the biggest among all her siblings, Grace is curious by nature, Frances is shy and Faith is very cute.
Rescued from a life of hunger and torture, the five are waiting for a B.C. organization to find them a new lease on life in Canada or the U.S.
Their foster parents in India, who are temporarily looking after the so called five ‘desi’ sisters  are hopeful that this will happen soon.
After all over 100 stray dogs from India, just like them have already found  homes in Canada and the U.S. thanks to the efforts of a pair of Indian vets and the B.C.-based organization called an organization, Adopt An Indian Desi Dog (AAIDD).
AAIDD or Adopt An Indian Desi Dog is a small not for profit rescue shelter located in Abbotsford, British Columbia, which rescues puppies from the streets of Delhi,  according to founding member, Barbara Gard.
Together with Delhi-based vets - Dr. S.K. Choudhary and his wife, Dr. P. Choudhary, some 100 of the strays known locally as ‘desi dogs’ ,  are now indulging in comfortable lives in Metro Vancouver and around Seattle in the U.S.
Gard did her first street puppy rescue in 2003 in India when she scooped 6 week old ‘Francis’ as he was being dropped over a cliff by a group of children who had been abusing him.
She has not looked back.
“The puppies in North America live a better and quality life. The people who are sponsoring their adoption process get greater rewards in life,” Gard said in a recent interview that has raised eyebrows in India.
Tellingly, none of the puppies have been taken by any South Asian family living in Canada or the U.S.
“Look we already have problems in Canada with abandoned dogs and the SPCA is constantly looking for people to adopt local animals...do we really need to import strays…This is a problem for India and it should be addressed in India,” said a Surrey-based vet.
As the dogs rescued by AAIDD are prepped to leave for Canada or the U.S, virtually every major metropolis in India is struggling with a stray dog menace that has caused planes to abort takeoffs, hundreds of road accidents and millions of bites.
India’s National Institute of Communicable Diseases based in Delhi estimates that there are some 25 to 28 million strays in India, which act as a reservoir for rabies.
The stray dogs are responsible for 60 percent of dog bites in India resulting in an estimated loss of 38 million person days and $25 million in post- bite treatments.
The institute said an individual is bitten every 2 seconds, and an estimated 20,000 people die from rabies in India every year.
India’s national capital alone is believed to have some 250,000 stray dogs, which are multiplying, intimidating, creating a nuisance, and biting people.
Kolkata alone is home to over 100,000 street dogs of which 65,000 are potential carriers of the rabies virus, officials said.
In Ludhiana, Punjab, local media reports said packs of stray dogs are confronting people in every nook and corner of the city.
Kerala’s capital of Thiruvananthapuram is struggling with the presence of some 25,000 stray dogs on the streets.
In Ahmedabad, the city hospital treats about 300 people bitten by dogs every day. In the Southern port city of Chennai, the merciless killing of stray dogs has spurred local authorities to capture 1,700 dogs a day to sterilize them.
Local officials have employed 15 workers to deal with the city’s 126,000 stray dogs.
The Indian branch of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) which is leading efforts in India to sterilize strays instead of killing them, has begun seeking endorsements from major celebrities to help their cause.
One of them is B.C.-born Baywatch star Pamela Anderson  has wrote to the Mumbai authorities after the city’s High Court said strays should be killed as they were a “permanent nuisance” to the public.
“Dogs cannot use condoms, but with the municipality’s help, they can be ‘fixed’ - painlessly, quickly and permanently,” her letter states.
While they may be considered a bane in India, the stray dogs are special to Gard and her band of canine crusaders.
Desi dogs makes a wonderful family dogs, states Gard and if you would like to help her please contact [email protected].
For families in Canada, the adoption fee is generally $650 Canadian dollar, which is non-profiting and includes charges for transport (air), vet visits and checks in three countries, shots, parasite control, and crate. For families residing in America, the fee comes to around $450.