Pooja Bhatt turns her farmhouse into a 22,000 square feet animal shelter 22000 : Bollywood News

The love that Pooja Bhatt, sister Alia Bhatt and her father Mahesh Bhatt have for animals has been known. But Pooja Bhatt has decided that she can’t merely have pets. She needs to do something for the betterment of animals, especially the abandoned and injured ones. She has got associated with an animal rescuer Sameer Vohra and has recently opened up about her experience.

Pooja Bhatt turns her farmhouse into a 22,000 square feet animal shelter

It all began in 2012, just after her erotic film Jism 2 had released. Pooja Bhatt had gone to Dubai when her then husband Manish Makhija for a much-needed break. At this point, their oldest dog Garbo was bitten by a baby cobra at their farm in Kalote near Lonavala. The only vet available in that area didn’t treat him well as he was trained to treat only cattle. Pooja Bhatt then made an SOS call to their lawyer Sridhar Gorthi. He contacted Sameer Vohra who saved their dog just before he was about to die. He and Pooja Bhatt then became good friends.

Sameer Vohra used to work in Miami, USA and 12 years ago, he shifted to Lonavala. Within three days, he got three dogs, a sheep and a dog for company. He was just one of the three animal rescue workers in the area and in no time, he also got into his shelter cows and bullocks knocked down by cars, horses, goats, donkeys, parrots, turtles and even an emu. In fact, the emu named Tazo became Pooja Bhatt’s favourite.

This weekend, Sameer Vohra moved out of his 4,000 square feet home in Lonavala to a 22,000 square feet animal shelter in Kalote designed by Manish Mukhija. Pooja Bhatt was there to welcome the animals and settle them down at their new home. She held fort with 22 cats, a 17-year-old dog, a day-old pup and two parrots. Samir Vohra meanwhile took care of the rest of the brood. Pooja Bhatt said that she played Bossanova music for the cats while baby-sitting them!

Pooja Bhatt revealed that she bought the farm 15 years ago in Kalote and at that time, they were the only one who had dogs for pets and treated them like family. She said that she’s happy to see that a dog culture has got evolved in the area. She hopes that with Samir Vohra’s shelter coming up, others will learn to care for other animals as well.