oshadie of adopt a dog in sri lanka « interviews
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Oshadie of Adopt A Dog in Sri Lanka
Posted by interviewsonweb on September 14, 2011 2 Comments
Oshadie’s 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
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see if we can match a potential owner to the dog or the puppy. Its 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.
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Wh did ou start it?
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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 dont wait till a deadline to do my universitywork so I have ample spare time to do volunteer work. I really cant believe I am doing my PhD in
Pharmacology and Biomedical Science while doing this; its not easy but its possible.
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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 its just been a little over 3months, 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 cant wait! But its a learning curve for us, and we
keep learning what to do and what not to do, but I think its been great!
Has it alwas 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 cant 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 fosters 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 couldnt even walk. We tried our best to get him back to health but hiskidneys had failed due to malnourishment and he passed away. Its 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 dont want their dog anymore because the dog was too
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friendly and playful and that if we dont 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. Its sad that so many stray dogs losehappy lives because when they get the disease they tend to get shunned from people due to being unsightly.
Its 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.
Its very difficult when we dont have help when it is needed, and its not at all easy all the time, but its 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/medicatedetc. 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 dont 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 dont put your female dog out on the road when she pregnant with the puppies, because its a greatsin. 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 didnt 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. Dont 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 lovethat 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. Ohadie Koale says:
October 21, 2011 at 3:25 pm
Thank you so much Natasha for letting me be your first interviewee.
Reply
2. Bhahini says:
October 21, 2011 at 4:48 pm
It’s been only 3 months since I’ve 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.
I’m so proud to get to know Oshadie, who is very kind hearted towards these poor pups & doggys on
the road, and I’m really surprised to see her dedication towards this over her busy life.She has been
rescuing many pups, and she won’t 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
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any possible way, atleast by spreading the word, to make a life of an innocent puppy a heaven.
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