Harborough journalist spends six weeks helping Sri Lankan street dogs

A canine-loving journalist has completed a six-week volunteer trip to Sri Lanka supporting street dogs.

Harborough Mail reporter Laura Kearns is trustee of Lucas Helps Dogs – a small charity ran by three friends who organise spay, neuter and rabies vaccination clinics.

While in Sri Lanka they ran three clinics, with 120 dogs sterilised and rabies vaccinated.

The team also rescued two abandoned puppies, provided skin treatments to 90 animals, fed 70 street dogs and cats and funded chemotherapy treatment for eight dogs with cancer. They also fostered a dog and a disabled cat, and rehomed three dogs in the UK and two in Sri Lanka.

Laura said: “It was my fourth time in Sri Lanka and each time I go it’s doesn’t get any easier seeing the suffering on the streets. There are some 6million street dogs, many who are malnourished, disabled after being hit by cars or abused and suffering from deadly cancers and horrendous skin illnesses.

“Vet care is not readily available to street dogs and they rely on help from charities like ours.

“Our clinics saw us protect these animals against rabies and having puppies, but also remove thousands of ticks, clean maggot wounds and treat uncomfortable skin conditions.

“There’s still so much more we need to do and the work hasn’t stopped since we got home.”

Since returning the charity has agreed to support a private local shelter for abused and disabled animals.

It is also sponsoring the sterilisation of three dogs a month belonging to low-income families. Each dog costs around £20 to spay, neuter and vaccinate.

Laura – who has a Sri Lankan street dog she rescued and brought to the UK – added: “We were informed about a man who turned his property into a shelter for injured dogs. None were sterilised and the house and garden was a building site, with a makeshift fence the animals escaped through.

“We agreed to fund sterilisation and medical care for these dogs, and install a new fence. This is so important as recently one disabled dog died after suffocating when he tried to escape.

“We will also treat the street dogs around the shelter to protect the community.

“We really need donations for this project, and monthly donors to cover the cost of the dogs belonging to low-income families. In Sri Lanka these dogs have owners who watch over them but still live on the streets.”

The charity trustees spend nearly every weekend attending fairs where they sell handmade collars and leads to raise money.

They also take collars and leads to Sri Lanka and hand them out to dog owners, who would otherwise use rope or wire.

Laura said: “Some of the injuries we have seen from makeshift collars embedded in the skin and even some made from barbed wire have been horrendous.

“We’re looking at returning to Sri Lanka later this year but until then will continue from here working to improve the lives of its amazing street dogs. So many of them just want love and its heart-breaking to see so many puppies die on the road, which is why we try and stop more being born into a life of misery.”

Follow the charity on Instagram here, or visit the website here.