chennai when they rescued ramu from a doctors house in chennai he could barely walk the threemonthold labrador could only crawl from one corner to the other as his legs were paralysed today ramu can run as fast as any other dog thanks to the love and care of t l correya and a lenora the animalloving couple who run a rescue centre for animals they launched v care animal old age home and shelter in maraimalai nagar in kancheepuram district in 1998 after lenora woke up to the sound of crying dogs one night a few men were killing stray dogs with wires i couldnt sleep the next morning i wrote to maneka gandhi of people for animals she helped us fight the killing of animals by such means we worked with her nonprofit organization for a while but we always wanted to run our own shelter said lenora an angloindian whose greatgrandfather jack atkinson was a judge in the high court during the british period they set up the place with their savings and care for 15 dogs five cows some hens and a pigeon with their own money theyve divided up the work with each taking on specific responsibilities correya a bank assistant takes care of the cows he rescued from kancheepuram and chengalpet lenora who teaches at a nearby school looks after the dogs and birds correya recently purchased an autorickshaw to help him speed up his rescue work the couple spends about rs 300 a day on the animals we dont think about money too much we love animals and they love us said lenora lenora and her husband cant give an exact figure for the number of animals theyve rescued but she remembers the names of every one that died there was an alsatian called caesar we didnt know he had leukemia we did whatever we could but he left us said lenora who keeps his collar in her briefcase to remember him stories never end when lenora is around there was another one we rescued him from chennai but he disappeared one day he resurfaced on the day of the tsunami so we called him tsunami she said though they pull along well there are times when the money is tight we spend a major part of our salary on the animals we need close to rs 10000 a month to run the shelter we will continue our work but wed be happy to get help said correya