Woof! Lookin for treats... ArOoough!
Woof! Lookin for treats... ArOoough!
Sri Lanka has over 4 million stray dogs and cats roaming the country. Majority of them live very hard-knock lives and lack the necessary medical care and food to truly thrive. Plus there are so many of them on the streets that they’ve become safety hazards for other animals, humans and themselves.
Most of these strays either play or mate right on the roads, so that + the reckless driving that happens far too often here, is the perfect recipe for disaster. Although Sri Lanka was ranked the number 1 travel destination in 2019, we can guarantee that when you visit you will drive past a dog or a cat that is missing a limb or two, more than once! With consistent CNVR (Catch, Neuter, Vaccinate & Release) clinics all around the country we hope that one day the your sightseeing will no longer include a disabled stray. For now we can only target the strays within Ella and our neighboring towns, but that in itself leaves us with over thousands of dogs and cats that require to be snipped. In time we do hope to establish wider CNVR programs throughout the country,
Here at Dogs Of Ella, we advocate for the sterilization of both females and males that live on the roads. We follow a basic CNVR system that helps us keep track of the dogs we have sterilized or are yet to. Luckily both spaying and neutering are very affordable on this end of the world and for a fledgling organization we have been able to sterilize 186 dogs and 40 cats since 2019.
With just 17€ you can help us sterilize and vaccinate a dog or a cat.
There are many benefits to CNVR, to learn more keep reading!
Our shelters are both small. At each of them we try to not house more than 25 dogs at a time. The reason we keep it this way is because we believe even rescued dogs in shelters should live a kennel free, free range, happy life IF that is an option for them. So when we first started our rescue program we decided to only rescue the amount of dogs and cats that can be housed comfortably within the space we can provide. Of course as we grow and expand as an organization we plan to expand our space so we can rescue more of strays that need us.
We have a very small isolation space that can house two rescues at a time in each shelter. The dogs that come in go straight to isolation, so we can treat and clear them of any highly contagious viruses or diseases, plus we make sure they are strong and healthy, before we introduce them to the packs. When introduced we do it slowly and watch as carefully as possible to make sure the new rescue gets on with the pack they’ve been introduced to. If they show any signs of aggression that turns into more than just dances of dominance, we remove them and re-place them. (This happens more often than you’d think.)
Most of the rescues we have come from hit and runs and the ever popular “dumping” culture here, What we call dumping culture is often what happens when a stray female has puppies in a town or village, most often nearby a food source, (restaurants, cafes, hotels, etc.) then the people working in the town, village or establishment, deem it a nuisance or a bad look for business and then do what for them is the easiest option; They take the puppies, (some wait till the eyes have opened, some don’t) and then discard of them in a completely different town or village, The mother dogs if young and approachable are also dumped in a different town.
This is something that completely threatens the chance of survival for both the puppies and mom, Puppies without their mother have a very very low mortality rate and dogs that have been displaced from their pack and environment face a multitude of threats too.
The rehabilitation process for both types of rescues vary significantly but one thing remains a constant. Love. When they get to us we shower them with an abundance of love, even the ones that don’t make it, know love in the end.
To meet some of these rescues and read their stories just click on the button below.
