She Skips Her Meals To Make Sure The Dogs Don’t Go Hungry!

Every morning in Goa, while the world is still waking up, an old woman pedals her second hand cycle down narrow lanes and roads, carrying with her nothing but rice food for the ones that she loves the most. Dogs. 

 Maria Aunty, now in her 60s, has become a familiar sight for hundreds of street dogs scattered across Goa. To them, she is more than a human, she is family.

She has no sponsors, no rich bank account, no big organization behind her. “Whatever I have, I use for them,” she says softly, ladling steaming rice onto a paper for a hungry pup. “They don’t demand anything from us… just food, love, and safety. If we can’t even give them that, we are no better than the cruelty they face.”

In a time when heartbreaking stories of dog abuse and cruelty fill our newsfeeds from poisoned street dogs to horrific cases like the recent incidents in Delhi, Maria Aunty chooses to fight back, not with protests or shouting, but with daily, unwavering kindness. Her battle is not waged in courts or headlines; it is fought on the streets, one wagging tail at a time.

Every single day, without fail, she travels kilometres on her cycle, stopping at known corners where loyal eyes and wagging tails await her. Many days, her knees ache, and the cycle chain threatens to give way but she never turns back. “If I don’t go, who will feed them?” she asks. “They will wait and go hungry. I can’t let that happen… not on my watch.”

Maria Aunty’s life is far from easy. As an older woman, she faces daily struggles, aching bones, limited income, and sometimes harsh words from people who don’t understand why she “wastes” her time on street dogs. But to her, they are not “strays”  , they are lives. Each one has a name in her heart, each one a story.

Today, she dreams of doing more: feeding more dogs, ensuring they have better, more nutritious food, and providing medical care for the sick and injured ones she comes across. But her resources are painfully limited. Often, she skips meals herself just so she can afford to buy extra rice for the dogs.

“I will do this until my last day,” she says with a quiet determination that moves you to tears. “This is the least I can do. They cannot speak for themselves… so I will speak, and act, for them.”

But Maria Aunty cannot and should not do this alone. She needs people who care for people who can help her continue her mission. Your contribution, no matter how small, will not just fill an empty stomach it will tell Maria Aunty that she is not alone.

Donors, at a time when heartbreaking news from Delhi tells us that thousands of street dogs may soon be taken away from their familiar lanes and locked into overcrowded shelters, a move that many fear could become a silent death sentence for them,  Maria Aunty’s work feels even more urgent. “They don’t have anyone else,” she says, shaking her head. “If the streets take them, if the people push them away… who will they have?” While laws debate their fate, she chooses to write her answer every day on the roads of Goa with bowls of rice, gentle hands, and the promise that at least one human will stand by them until her last breath.

Help now, donate today.