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Taking care of Ella’s pooches
View(s):Story and Pix by Prasad Rukmal
Two foreigners – one from Hong Kong and another from the UK – who fell in love with Ella after several visits to the country, have now stepped in to take care of its stray dogs.
Dharithi Doyel Dawson (28), born in Sri Lanka and currently residing in Hong Kong, and her British friend Jessipa Nehlich (29) who she met when they visited Ella in Sri Lanka in 2019, observed the plight of stray dogs living in Ella city. Therefore they decided to take care of the dogs and started their programme (Ella to dogs) in the town area.
Ms Dawson said that they recognised foreign organisations and persons who take care of dogs and obtained their knowledge and started the programme.
She added that she also collected money with her friends in Hong Kong and returned to Sri Lanka with medicine and other needed items, so her friend Nehlich, other friends could carry out treatment for dogs at Kahagolla in Diyathalawa.
Meanwhile her friend Jessipa Nehlich said that there are many helpless puppies found along roadsides due to stray dogs having large litters. Even though the wealthy look after expensive dog breeds spending hundreds of thousands of rupees, there is no one to look after street pooches.
“Both small children and the elderly get bitten by stray dogs, therefore, locals too are facing many problems with dogs. Therefore we also carry out sterilisation of dogs to keep dog numbers manageable.”
She explained that they also medicate injured street dogs. “We have deployed four groups to treat dogs in Colombo and another four groups in Matara as well as a separate group at Badulla,” she added.
Ms Nehlich added that their programme would improve the health of the people as well as street living dogs.
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