Artist Alicia Souza’s rescued pets are the real-life inspiration for many of the comic strips you see in Souza’s drawings, where love, life and art combine the Internet’s two favourite things — cute animals and humour. The Bengaluru-based illustrator, who also has her own brand of merchandise, works from home, supervised by Charlie — an Indian dog who enforces work-life balance through petting breaks, and Henry Oats, a minuscule but self-assured guinea pig.
Apart from similar patterns on their coats and the fact that Charlie and Henry are household names, the brothers in fur have another thing in common — they are both rescues. While Charlie was rescued from homelessness by Alicia’s friend, Henry Oats was adopted from the animal shelter CARE (coincidentally called Charlie’s Animal Rescue Centre), Bengaluru.
“I’d just moved into my place and wasn’t looking for a pet. But the minute my friend brought him over, I was so taken with him. He’s my first dog, and was incredibly easy to teach. He’s definitely my baby,” she says of Charlie, whose strong facial expressions have won him a fan following, both in the real and virtual worlds.
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As for Henry, Alicia reveals that a guinea pig jumps up in the air when happy and that it’s called ‘popcorning’. “Henry popcorns all the time,” she laughs. “They’re very social creatures. I make sure I talk to him and play with him a lot.” While guinea pigs are usually adopted in pairs so they have company, Henry adopted Charlie as his older brother. Through her illustrations, Alicia supports the cause of rescued animal adoption with the hashtag #adoptdontshop, along with videos of shelter animals that are waiting for families to call their own. When she sees homeless puppies, she reflexively calls them “Charlie” and wishes each of them would get the chance that her Charlie did. Alicia believes that all it takes is one magical meeting. To people who are looking to get a pet, she suggests a casual visit to an animal shelter.
“Just go like you’d go for a walk in the park and see the dogs,” she says. Says Sudha Narayanan, trustee, CARE, about her star supporter — “Alicia treats Henry like a person, which is a dream come true for us. She also helped raise funds to purchase a high-end anaesthesia machine through the sale of her merchandise.”
While countless others from Henry’s former home benefit from her contribution, Charlie has been immortalised in her much-shared comic about canine love. Cartoon Alicia kneels on the floor, takes her dog’s paw in her hand and swears — “I, Alie, take you, Charlie, to be my pawfully furry puppy, to cuddle and to hold, from this day forward, for behaved, for naughty, in sickness and in health, for as long as my heart beats... I do.”
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