Vom Workawayer (Romina & Markus) für Host
Anjalis little dog shelter at the outskirts of Chennai is a place where we have lost our hearts. If you love being with dogs (24/7!) and like the idea to have 70 furry friends around all day long this may be the right place for you. But keep in mind that this also means a lot of barking (especially in the beginning) and that it may take a while to
… read more make friends with everybody - but it’s worth it!
Some more information:
At the beginning we only wanted to stay for two weeks as it was our first workaway and we were not sure if we fit into this project. But after one week of acclimatization and getting to know each other (I mean with the dogs, with Anjali we had no problem to warm up :blush: ) we loved to be in the dog house. So we stayed there for almost 2 month. The first days we had quite a hard time as a lot of dogs kept barking and barking every time they’ve seen us. This could be because we were the first volunteers they’ve ever seen in their lives, and some had bad experience with humans in the past (but they will not bite at all). As I said after one week it was fine, only a few barkers remained, when we left our room or went to the backyard.
It is a dog shelter without kennels and cages, the dogs roam free everywhere, and this is the exactly what we loved about it. The dogs have different territories and generally behave in a very social manor. Only Anjalis and the volunteer’s bedroom is restricted area for them.
There are a lot of things to do, during the day and the night: help with the feeding twice a day, help with the cleaning (for the basics there comes a maid every day and a caretaker helps with the poo, but you can clean the windows, the walls, …). In between do all you like to help feeling the dogs comfy – petting, skin treatment, playing, whatever.
Afternoon till late evening is free time, which we spend with carpenter work, painting, reading and cooking or just hanging out with the dogs. Around the shelter there is not much to do so prepare for chilling, reading and dog playing in your free time. Keep in mind that the place is in the outskirts of Chennai and it’ll need a 45 min Tuktuk drive to be in the city. We went there sometimes for the weekends.
After feeding the dogs in Chennai City, Anjali comes back between 10 and 11 pm, then the night feeding is about to begin, which takes about 1 to 2 hours, depends on the amount of food she acquired from the hotels in town. After that you can say good night to the right now 72 dogs and go to bed. We’ve named them all, so if you want a list just ask:wink:!
We sometimes felt very exhausted after such a long day but it really made us feel good seeing the dogs lying on the floor with a full belly, cuddling with each other and we had made our contribution to it. And just think of Anjalis day! She is working from early in the morning with only 2 hours break, until after midnight, every day and she is grateful for every little help she can get.
In exchange for your help you get your own room with attached bathroom or you can hang out or even sleep in “the cave” (so we and Megan, a volunteer who joined us for 10 days, called it), it’s a room upstairs which we three made ready for volunteers coming after us. It’ll almost feel like camping. What more you will get…three basic meals a day (or the opportunity to cook yourself), nice talking with Anjali about various topics and dozens of new furry friends to play with.
All in all it was a wonderful, sometimes challenging and always rewarding time for us. We learned so much about dog behaviour and care and even improved our carpentry skills.
