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Oshadie of Adopt A Dog in Sri Lanka

Posted by interviewsonweb on September 14, 2011 2 Comments Oshadies dedication to taking caring of stray dogs in Sri Lanka came to our notice of sometime in August 2011. Therefore, mostly aptly, we decided to have Oshadie as our first interviewee. What is your passion in life?

Oshadie Korale My passion in life is to do as much as possible to help the stray dogs in the community. I want to educate people about the needs of strays, and to promote the adoption of strays. I guess I would like to see every stray dog having a loving home, at least food and meds and basic needs met. What is Adopt a Dog in Sri Lanka about? It started as just a page to promote the adoption of strays, as meeting ground for potential owners and foster parents who help strays to meet, but now it has become a small organization which helps re home stray dogs. Our objective is to re home as many as stray puppies as we can and to sterilize the stray mother dogs of the puppies we re-home. Adopt a Dog helps anyone who wants to re-home stray puppies on the road and any dog that needs assistance What is the process? When someone picks up an abandoned dog or pups they usually call us and lets us know, and we send them a brief questionnaire to fill with information about the puppy or dog in need.Then we go ahead and post a picture of the puppy along with the information given on our Adopt a dog in Sri Lanka face book page and

see if we can match a potential owner to the dog or the puppy. It s basically like a match making service. The volunteers help us by picking the puppies, finding fosters, cross-posting links etc. We sometimes advertise on the news papers to find permanent homes for dogs. We also get help with transport to take the pups to the vet and the new owners, and to keep track of the puppies we have given away.

Wh did ou start it?

I started it with my two friends, the co-founding members Megali Nanayakkara and Andrew Jebaraj to basically use Facebook as a medium through which to find homes for the homeless puppies we pick up and wish to help. I used to post the details of puppies I pick from the road on my personal FB page and had so much success re-homing them so we thought why not make a permanent page and help like-minded fosters find homes for puppies. Andrew also suggested we do something like a matchmaking website for potential owners and fosters, like popular international websites such as RSPCA do, but we wanted to do it for Sri Lanka for our stray dogs in need and base it on Facebook. Who has helped ou?

My two co-founding members, Megali Nannayakkara and Andrew Jebaraj. My parents help out immensely by putting up with all the puppies I bring home. We have a few permanent foster parents like Dilukshi and her husband Devaka who have been there all along silently helping out, and the awesome foster Mrs.Manoja, who has been doing this on her own for so long, and Nina and Nadeesha our friends and fosters who help dogs from as far away as Nittambuwa, and my friend Mr.Chanka Perera, who helps us with transport whenever possible and must not forget Suganthi aunty who has been there helping us in many ways.

My grandmom is also awesome and helps me by take care of sick pups and bring them back to health. I always joke saying she has the ability to fatten up any skinny puppy in just a few days. We also have a good group of vets who helps us by treating these homeless dogs with an affordable price and volunteers who help out. And there are also the many fans on FB that do all the cross posting and emailing on our behalf. How do ou manage it while balancing studies? Hmmmm I always balance my time, and prioritize things, and I don t wait till a deadline to do my university work so I have ample spare time to do volunteer work. I really can t believe I am doing my PhD in Pharmacology and Biomedical Science while doing this; it s not easy but it s possible.

You need to know which to finish first. To succeed in life you need education plus volunteer or extra-curricular activities to balance out the stress. Studies are not everything; you need to follow your passion as well, if not you easily get bored with life. Helping dogs makes me happy so I enjoy living life. I think volunteering and running Adopt a Dog with my two friends helps me stay focused with my university work as well. Megalie is also a university a student and Andrew is a young entrepreneur who has his own company so I guess if all three of us can balance our education and work with volunteering, so can anyone who is willing to help. How successful has it been so far? It has been awesome. We never expected Adopt a Dog in Sri Lanka to get this popular in such a short time but we have done really well. We started the page on May 13th 2011 and it s just been a little over 3 months, and we have up to date, gained a following of over 2200 members and have re-homed 93 puppies. We will probably re home our 100th puppy next week can t wait! But it s a learning curve for us, and we keep learning what to do and what not to do, but I think it s been great! Has it alwa s been smooth sailing?

Not really, Animal welfare is not an easy thing to do. You come across all sorts of people and you end up seeing really bad situations where you can t even believe the extent of how cruel some people can be to animals. Recently we rescued a stray dog named Kodak who was being chased by villagers who wanted to kill him for defending himself a thug in the area had been repeatedly hitting him and he had done the only thing that any threatened animal would do - he had bitten the man. The man then rounded up some villages and started looking for the dog to kill it. Kodak is now with us at one of our foster s and we are looking for a home for him. Then there was the case of Rocky- the Great Dane who was rescued from a person who had not fed him at all. He was so malnourished he couldn t even walk. We tried our best to get him back to health but his kidneys had failed due to malnourishment and he passed away. It s hard to deal with when dogs that we rescue die like in cases like that. We always wish we had found them with enough time to save them. One time we got a call from a person saying they don t want their dog anymore because the dog was too

friendly and playful and that if we don t find him a home in three days they were going to put the poor dog out on the road. Luckily after emailing and FB posting we managed to find him a home in two days. We were very worried as its note easy to find homes for adult dogs. Most of the time we find dogs that have been ill-treated, suffering from wounds, malnourishment, chronic illnesses that have not been treated etc. and we also rescue a lot of dogs with mange. Mange is a rash that comes all over the body of dogs due to a certain mite. They lose their fur as the rash develops and they start to look old the good thing is that it is curable if treated properly. It s sad that so many stray dogs lose happy lives because when they get the disease they tend to get shunned from people due to being unsightly. It s hard to help all the dogs out there but we try to help the ones we can. It all depends on whether our foster or any new fosters can take them in and bring them back to good health so that we can re-home them. It s very difficult when we don t have help when it is needed, and it s not at all easy all the time, but it s all worth it to know that we took over 90 dogs off the streets and into loving homes in just 3 months. What do ou want to do in the future for Adopt a Dog? We hope to have a website for us soon, where people can sponsor dogs that need to be sterilized/medicated etc. We already have this on our FB page but having a web page would make it easier as we could then get more visibility, and sponsors for advertisements and may be of help for more dogs. One day we hope to have a transit shelter, a place to keep the puppies until they find homes.

What messages have ou for Sri Lankans? Try to be more humane, help a stray dog in need, and if you have the means, to adopt a stray. I understand that some prefer to buy pure breeds but don t forget to adopt a stray as well. I think we could reduce the number of strays out on our streets if every household that has a pure bred adopted just one stray. At the age of 5 months you can get them sterilized. This is the best method of birth control. You will be helping yourself, the dog and the community. Every time someone abandons a dog on the road there is chance of increasing rabies as well. So please vaccinate your dogs and help promote sterilization. So pleases spray your female dog, and don t put your female dog out on the road when she pregnant with the puppies, because it s a great sin. If you do not sterilize your dog and leave the dog on the road letting her litter every 6 months up to 7 years or more, it will result in approximately 80 puppies that will probably go through the same fate or worse. I am very happy to say that I have met lot of people who didn t have the space to adopt a dog but was kind and considerate enough to help us with money for sterilization and transport. Also Sri Lankans should teach their kids the value of being kind to animals, to love an animals, I think if we could teach the future generation the value of adoption and awareness about strays we could reduce the number of stray population in the future. Don t forget that strays too give you the same love, possibly more. And in fact with good food, good care and vitamins they could look really good as well and it is the stray dogs that in my opinion are the most loyal because they know they were saved off the streets and are grateful. So adopt a dog and feel the love that only a dog can bring into your life.

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Comments

2 Responses to Oshadie of Adopt A Dog in Sri Lanka

1.

O hadie Ko ale says: October 21, 2011 at 3:25 pm Thank you so much Natasha for letting me be your first interviewee. Reply

2.

Bha hini says: October 21, 2011 at 4:48 pm Its been only 3 months since Ive joined Adopt a dog in Sri Lanka and I am so happy to see their progress within a very short period of time. When I joined they had only adoptions but now they have introduced sterilization programs and rescues. Im so proud to get to know Oshadie, who is very kind hearted towards these poor pups & doggys on the road, and Im really surprised to see her dedication towards this over her busy life.She has been rescuing many pups, and she wont give up for anything, especially in the situation of the two week old Venus & Twinkle who had to be bottle fed and now been re homed, and not to mention how she tried her best to rescue Benji boy. Thumbs up to Oshadie and the team and I wish them success. I hope everyone will give them a hand in

any possible way, atleast by spreading the word, to make a life of an innocent puppy a heaven. Reply

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