RPF hero will retire to Virar

Pagemaker, the ten-year-old Labrador who is due to retire as a soldier of the Railway Protection Force (RPF) Mumbai will spend his remaining days at a Virar animal farm. RPF will finalise the agreement with Fizzah Shah, owner of a 15 acre animal farm at Modalpada, Virar (east), within the coming week.

Pagemaker worked with the RPF dog squad and retired from active service last week. A cake was cut for him by his handler as farewell. RPF sources said Pagemaker was part of the sniffer and bomb detection squad during his working years.

Ms Shah, whose animal farm is currently home to 400 animals including abandoned cows, buffaloes, goats and donkeys as well as 45 pedigree dogs abandoned by their owners, said she was happy to accommodate Pagemaker. “It is an honour for us that Pagemaker will be with us for the remaining years of his life. Pagemaker will be the sixth retired police dog who will be at our animal farm. Earlier, we had Caesar, a Labrador who did yeoman service for the RPF, besides Max, the superhero Labrador of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. Sadly, both Caesar and Max are no more having breathed their last a few months ago at our farm. We now also have Sultan, a retired Labrador who was with the Mumbai police at Goregaon,” she said.

Ms Shah stressed that due to the heavy nature of their work, sniffer dogs who’ve worked for ten years suffer from arthritis, diabetes, respiratory ailments (due to continuous sniffing of narcotics and explosives) and skin and other diseases. However, they take good care of retired police and RPF dogs at the farm, which includes vaccinating them every month, providing them fresh food and avoiding giving them processed packaged food.

Ms Shah said that they used to provide Max chicken and rice which he loved. “We are anxiously waiting for Pagemaker to join us at our farm,” she said. Among the conditions laid down by RPF and Mumbai police are that the retired dogs cannot be used for breeding or given up for adoption, let alone selling them.