Our Rescue Dogs - making GlenMyu Estate a special place.
We have seven rescue dogs here at GlenMyu Estate.
Dogs were not in our plan!
Ruwanthi and I didn’t intend to have any dogs, they just found us.
We ended up with Seven!
How we ended up here.
In 2018 we were living in our temporary abode whilst we develop the land at Beragala in our “Garage” at the top part of the land – a 1,000 sq ft building with one bedroom, attached bathroom and internal garage.
Ruwanthi had started planting various fruits and vegetables in the kitchen garden new the garage and we were losing produce on a regular basis to various raiders during the day and night which included a wide variety of birds, monkeys and wild boar.
The onsite caretaker for the construction company had two dogs, a male and female called Kahlu and Donnie and we were regularly disturbed at night by the barking warning us of predators looking for a midnight snack or two.
Some of the construction workers alerted us that there were three puppies that had been dropped off at the top of our road which they had been feeding as they arrived and left for the evening.
We were to subsequently find out that dropping off unwanted dogs, especially females, was a regular event in Sri Lanka. It is particularly prevalent around the monthly Poya day and puppies are dropped near temples with the expectation that a worshipper would take on the problem.
Ruwanthi went with one of our workers to investigate and found that the male puppy had died and there were the remaining undernourished female puppies remaining. Despite not being a dog lover the natural instinct was to take the two orphans and provide some sustenance and shelter as you would with any animal in need.
We fell in love
We named them Clove and Cinnamon as they were dark with some flecks of white and brown on them. It was a steep learning curve for us both with lots of searching on the internet finding out what we needed to do.
We didn’t want the dogs inside the garage and their quarters was a box outside with a towel to provide the warmth that they would have gotten from their mother.
At the time Donie was due to have some puppies so we were going to have more animals on the premises than expected however we did think they would all be found new homes and Kahlu and Donie would move on to the next project with their owner.
Donies pups were born and the dog numbers were raised by three. We were feeding Clove and Cinnamon and Kahlu and Donie were mainly fed from our spare rice with their main meals being provided by the unwanted leftovers from the construction workers.
Disaster Strikes and we are heartbroken
Clove and Cinnamon were very sweet and we unexpectedly had gotten quite attached very quickly. A few trips to the vet for advice and the relevant injections they started to grow and get stronger with their regular feeding of rice and curry several times a day.
Cinnamon was the more adventurous of the two and they both provided us with lots of entertainment watching them grow and develop.
One evening we didn’t have too much food available left over for Donie and her pups however they were fed by their owner. Perhaps there was little provided there as some of the workers had gone home for a few days.
In the middle of the night I was awoken by Ruwanthi shouting at the dogs as there was some racquet going on outside. It took us a minute or two to get the garage door open and find out what was going on in the pitch black of the night.
Ruwanthi had seen Donie with one of our puppies hanging from her mouth and she went searching outsides soon as able. Eventually, after what appeared to be an age she returned with the limp body of Cinnamon cradled in her arms. Within a few minutes Cinnamon stopped breathing and was gone.
The Grief Cycle
An event like this never leaves you and I do think about our Cinnamon quite often and wonder what type of character she would have grown into. Early on Clove had attached herself to Ruwanthi and Cinnamon to me.
It was very traumatic for us to think what Cinnamon must have gone through and we were confused and bewildered in trying o work out why this had happened. We felt guilt and sorrow for what Cinnamon must have endured as a shocking end to her short life.
We went through the established emotions of grief and my anger towards Donie was difficult to abate.
We had really become attached to the dogs and were distraught by the events that had taken place.
We came to the conclusion that Donie had not had sufficient food to eat as she was providing for three suckling puppies and perhaps had seen Clove and Cinnamon as threats to her food source. Cinnamon, being adventurous may have been disturbed during the night by the new puppies and went to investigate and Donie decided to protect her pups.
A change or lifestyle
We now changed our outlook to protect Clove until she had grown to a size where she would be able to defend herself. Our reticence to have a dog inside the garage abated and Cloves home was over into the Garage part of the building.
Prior to her moving inside we did not have to worry about midnight trips for the dogs to relieve herself or investigate any potential nocturnal predators at our vegetable garden.
Sleep depravation was now to follow with the garage door being raised and lowered regularly during the night. Clove took some time to work out that the garage was not her toilet and we were regularly met with presents for us to avoid in the morning.
It was all worth it in the end.
Our first dog that we named Clove.
It turns out that Clove was not going to be the last of the dogs that came to us at GlenMyu Estate, however that story will have to wait for another Blog post.
To be continued - the story of our rescue dogs.
We now have Seven dogs. It has not been our maximum number as we have taken in a rehoused lots of puppies over the short time we have been at GlenMyu Estate.
At the time of writing another female puppy has just forced her way into the estate!
Pictures to follow.
See our Dogs YouTube Channel at this link.
A stay at GlenMyu Estate to meet the rescue dogs and so much more.
At GlenMyu Estate we have 3 guest bedrooms nestled in the 5 acres of land.
If you are looking for a different holiday and to meet our rescue dogs please contact us by WhatsApp for our best rates 00 94 752 999 272.
Contact details are also on our website.