Yesterday morning my partner (he is Dutch) and I were on a safari jeep on our way to Yala, until our jeep driver hit a poor dog on the street. What was even more shocking is that he wanted to continue the safari saying that it was ‘a very normal occurrence miss’ and ‘once or twice a day we hit a dog on the road miss.’ This was both heartbreaking and horrifying. We made him turn the truck around and we found the dog lying on the side of the road half dead.

We spent the rest of our day going from vet to vet on the southern coast to get Nova (that’s her name) treated. Unfortunately, it looks like the jeep critically fractured Nova’s pelvis and she may never walk again. She is only around 1 year old and she is a beautiful sweet girl who trusted us instantly with her life (although we are personally responsible for ruining her life).

She is now being treated at Animal SOS in Ahangama and we hope that one day she will be fit enough, so we can adopt her and take her to the Netherlands (where we live with two other rescue dogs). During this encounter not once did the driver show any remorse. He had a tendency to laugh and simplify the issue and he was terribly worried about his business. A man who made his living through animals seems to have no guilt about critically injuring one. Mind you, this is a driver we knew from our last safari to Yala and we held him in good esteem until this happened. So there may be worse guys out there. 

I know that this is not a massive story, but I believe that it is a story that desperately needs telling. There is a dire need to control who can drive these massive safari jeeps and how they drive them. There is also an even bigger need to pay attention to the suffering of our street dogs and protect them, because if we don’t, who will?

There are many stories about foreigners being threatened and overcharged in the news and now the government is taking some action. Even if the action is just ‘for a show’, it does have an impact on how the perpetrators and potential perpetrators behave. If the media gives the story of a foreigner carrying a half-dead dog across the south because of our 'uncontrolled' and overly lax safari industry, maybe the government would turn their eyes towards this problem too. This definitely does not bode well for our tourism industry.

Sent by Anushiya Vanajan