30 October,2024 07:22 AM IST | Mumbai | Oshin Fernandes
Sheeba Akashdeep Sabir with her 7 dogs Pic/Instagram
Actor and pet parent Sheeba Akashdeep Sabir is the mom to seven Shih Tzu pups named Falafel, Bubble, Sunshine, Sparkle, Boston, Sky, and Diego. To her, loving pets is an integral part of her life. Sheeba works with rehoming and rescuing pets and working with several NGOs. She speaks exclusively to mid-day.com about her fur babies and pleads for an animal-friendly Diwali.
Sheeba recalls how she got Sparkle home, who eventually became pregnant during peak COVID-19. She wasn't worried about the litter on the way, but the pressure to find suitable homes. She says, "People without a sense of responsibility don't realise how hard work animals are. They will adopt a puppy because it's very cute at that age it looks very nice but the minute it's a 6-7-month-old baby and they are peeing and pooping and it's food, doctor, vaccinations and it's a lifetime commitment."
When the time came for Sparkle to give birth, the vet refused to come home and Sheeba, along with her son Bhavishya did it all by herself after watching a tutorial on YouTube. "The whole night we were just delivering babies, cleaning, tying umbilical cords, stitching up the thing putting them on hot pads, expressing her milk. We were learning everything," she says.
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Sheeba decided to keep them all in her plush abode at Lokhandwala. A star of her era, who shared screen space with bigwigs like Salman Khan and Suniel Shetty, she jokes about being now known because of her dogs.
Despite being a working mother, Sheeba has ensured that her babies are not neglected while she is away. Winnie, who is like a godmother to the dogs, is the actor's one point of contact. She elaborates, "Having a pet is a full-time responsibility and I never tell anybody to take it lightly or gift a pet to someone or give in to a child's demand."
Speaking of pets requiring maintenance, she avers, "It is something that is required for their well-being. When I groom them I check for fleas or ticks which gives them tick fever which can take their life if they have. A pet's tolerance is very high. By the time you figure something is wrong, they have already reached the limit of their pain."
With Diwali around the corner, Sheeba is visibly annoyed with the idea of firecrackers and pollution that is set to envelop the city. She calls it "big nonsense". "It's bad enough for humans. The pollution all over our country is out of control already on top of that the noise scares us and their (animals) hearing is 100 times more than ours. They cower, they get scared, they run away from homes, and street dogs are displaced because of the loud noises. They are deafened. It's like quite a scary time. Diwali should be a time when everybody should help the homeless and the voiceless. Buy a meal, sponsor a dog, sponsor a child. Don't burn up your money on firecrackers," concludes Sheeba.
