We arrived LLLF and as usual, we greeted by the friendly farm dogs. Bro Sui and some of his helpers were there to welcome us, too. Many of the workers were on Deepavalli leave, including Mr Mariappan, the one who looks after and feeds the dogs.
Thanks to your generous donations, here’s my car load of food supply for the dogs and some goodies for the workers. By the way, I used my daughter’s MyVi since the boot is lots bigger than my little Kelisa.
Bro Sui, as usual, is always very careful with the supplies we bring and here, in the background, you see many packets of the vegetarian dog kibbles we had brought two months ago. He says he uses them sparingly as he prefers that the dogs get used to the farm’s natural foods recipe so that it won’t be such a burden on us to keep supplying the vegetarian kibbles (which to him, costs a bomb!). Bro Sui is an extremely thoughtful man.
Here’s Ruby and Jamie, from Kechara House. Kechara House has been planning to start an animal sanctuary, so both of them followed on this trip to take a look at LLLF.
Here’s Ainey and the farm dogs. Ainey is also a rescuer and has two adopted pugs of her own.
Come, let’s go up to the dogs’ enclosure. This is the first trip to LLLF for Terry, Ainey, Jamie and Ruby, so everything’s very new (and fascinating, I hope! Plus, inspiring) for them. I can act as tour guide!
Here we are, folks…the dogs’ enclosure!! This is the first enclosure (downstairs) which we (sort of) helped to build during our first rehoming. All the fourteen dogs have been let out and are roaming free now. The dogs live downstairs and the goats live upstairs!
So, er…what are we looking at if all the dogs have already been let out?
Hello, what have we here? “Look closer,” says Bro Sui…
Goodness me….two exotic hornbills!! Bro Sui said someone rescued them recently and liberated them on the farm. Now, these are not your ordinary birds, mind you. It seems they terrorise the dogs and the dogs do not dare to come into the enclosure anymore. Oh wow….fierce, eh?
Dog-terrorising hornbills? I wonder if there’ll come a time when we have hornbills guarding our houses… Interesting thought…
So, where are the dogs now? “Well, they are everywhere”, Bro Sui said. So we looked around and tried to spot them…
Here’s one, sitting on the pile of planks, very contented.
Here are another two…
Here are two more, peeping out…
Peek-a-boo! Another one, from the same hiding place.
Then, I spotted this one, lying down in the sun. She looked quite thin, but when she got up, oh my goodness, you could see her ribs very distinctly. She was practically skin and bones. I alerted Bro Sui and told him she is probably sick, so why don’t we catch her and bring her back to the vet’s?
We tried. But she played hide and seek with the five of us! We surrounded her, but she was just too fast for us. Ainey caught her for an instance actually, but she snapped at Ainey and she had to let go.
I rang Shahrul of SPCA and described the condition of this dog to her. Shahrul said it’s probably tick fever. If we could not catch her and bring her back, Shahrul said the next best thing is to ask Bro Sui to feed her a pip of garlic every day. I informed Bro Sui about this, but I wonder how they are going to make sure it is she who would eat the garlic and not the other dogs. After all, they just leave the food outside the enclosure and everybody eats. It’s first-come-first-served.
Well, we could not catch her at all, so I told Shahrul on the phone that when they come up here for the spay-neuter clinic on 31st October, please get a vet to take a look at her. I’m sure the SPCA folks have their ways of catching her.
Bro Sui told me that ever since the dogs have been let out, they have developed the habit of roaming around, but would come back for food. After their meal, they would all lounge at the slope behind the enclosure, enjoying their afternoon siesta. What a life! Can I live here, too?
Next, we looked in on the SPCA dogs. These are also Ketam dogs whom SPCA had rehomed over here. They all looked fine, but many were still quite traumatised. Bro Sui asked if they could be let out – he said he did not dare do it without SPCA’s approval. I did not see why not, after all, didn’t we bring them here to be freed? So, I rang Shahrul again, got the confirmed “ok”, and conveyed this to Bro Sui. They have already been enclosed for more than a month now. So these dogs will be let out this evening.
When left the dog enclosure and walked back to the main building. As we were walking back…guess what we saw? Bro Sui opened the doors of a shed and out flew….bats???
“Look out, duck!! It’s bats, they might fly straight at you”, Terry said.
These are not bats!! They are swallows!! There must have been hundreds or even thousands of them. And out they flew, so joyfully into the sun. Swallows! “Yin Chee”, Bro Sui said. Hey, that’s my name: Yin = Yein
Terry joked saying soon they can harvest bird’s nest soup for the dogs!
When we got back to the main building, there was another unexpected adventure…
Tune in to the next postings, please…
