Welcome to Soul sugar. I'm your host carry rad. You might know me from my videos on YouTube. I love to chat about all things self-care self-love living our very best lives and finding our inner magic Soul. Sugar is a community of blooming Soul Seekers like sugar for your soul. Hello. Welcome to an all-new episode. Odd of Soul sugar podcast, it's your host carry rad and I have Alex ailing sitting across from me. Alex is my fiance and also a YouTuber. I feel like I'm not going to hold up to what I said about you on the last episode. So I want you to give us a little introduction about you and what you do because you are definitely not only YouTuber. Yeah, you definitely set the the introduction bar quite high on the last podcast, but I guess I'll just keep it brief. I'm a filmmaker photographer Storyteller TV host and amateur life enthusiastic. Love it. Today. We're going to be chatting about Lanka is adoption story. You guys asked us a lot about the story of Lanka how he got here to Los Angeles from Sri Lanka and if you don't know who Lanka is he is our little adopted. It pop from Sri Lanka. We were traveling there. We saw him and will give you further details in just a moment and we decided to figure out how to bring him back with us to Los Angeles and he is currently in our living room right now. So we are going to bring you way back to September of 2018 in Sri Lanka near Marissa. We were going from Marissa know we were going from Ella to Marissa. Sri Lanka maybe we should Orient The Listener on where Sri Lanka is Sri Lanka love it. I travel and geography expert Alex coming in clutch Sri Lanka is a small island nation tropical beautiful right below the southern tip of India its had civilization for a very long time Buddhist and Hindu it's had a slightly rough last 30 years. With some Civil War there, but things are on the up-and-up there has been peace now for about a decade and when we visited a year ago, we had one of the best trips ever loved it want to go back so bad. We loved Sri Lanka. I dream of it all the time. I loved everything about it. I loved the people. I loved the entire vibe there. It was just chill, but people were nice the food so good and we also met Lanka which was a Plus in the whole situation but was very difficult and there was a lot of emotions wrapped up in the entire story. So we might as well get into that now so starting where the story began we were in a bus going from like a small bus sort of what would you say SUV style. So essentially we were in Sri Lanka with my brother Marco and my best friend Carlos and we were shooting a video series for YouTube channel vagabrothers and it was about a nine-day trip starting in the capital of Colombo and kind of hitting all of the major areas of to ristic interest if you will, so we saw a lot of the country and the best way to get around Sri Lanka when you're traveling there is, you know, essentially hiring a driver so we had a driver his name was Nero. He's a super friendly guy remember that name because he is a very important character in this story. Indeed. He is Heart of Gold Nero has and so we were on this long road trip. It was I think six days into a nine-day trip and we were leaving Ella which is a popular like Backpackers destination in the central Highlands of the country and we were heading towards the southern coast, which is kind of like beach Vibes surf towns specifically a place called Marissa. So we were on a long drive from the highlands down. Down to the coast that whole morning. We were kind of like just napping we were you know, kind of tired and everybody was just kind of snoozing in the truck didn't I get some serious sickness I got carsick. Okay, was that that day? I don't know but I was getting car sick a lot on Drew. Well, it's because the I don't think you were alone. The roads were extremely windy, especially when we're coming down from the mountains, but we were in the middle of rural Sri Lanka. I don't remember exactly where it was. But I do remember somebody saying that it was like quote-unquote like the ganja growing capital of Sri Lanka. So I don't know if you're interested in that, you know, we're driving and then all of a sudden we came to an abrupt stop and the road was filled with water. Buffalo. A farmer was transferring his herd of water buffalo, which kind of look like, you know, like cape buffalo from Africa. They have like big horns and you know, Black bodies and they were maybe a hundred of them in in the highway in the middle of the highway. So they'd stop traffic. We had to pull over I jumped out Carlos jumped out. We were shooting some cool video of the whole scene and then when we got back in we were like hey, maybe we should all just stop and use the restroom and grab a tea. So they're just so happened to be a small little Roadside restaurant / Hotel on the side of the road right there. So we pulled in and Use the restroom our driver Nero ordered t4s and when I came out of the restroom, I saw like the hotel had kind of like a large wall to compound in the back and the the BAC was like very overgrown and jungly and there was some like discarded Old Farm Equipment back there and I saw something move on the ground and earlier in the day. We had seen Sri Lanka has Mongoose and I don't know if you know what Mongoose are but they're like crazy little mammals and they they hunt snakes and stuff and they're cool. They're dragon creatures. Now, they're not dragging creatures. Those are monitor lizards. Oh, well, there's several different types of dragon creatures in Sri Lanka. There are yeah, the the water monitor lizard is a scary looking thing. It's kind of closely related to Komodo dragons and definitely would eat lots of things including maybe a person. But anyways, we're getting a little puppy or a little puppy. Definitely a little puppy. Anyways, we see something scurrying around. I see something screwing around in the corner of my peripheral vision. Over in the back of the lot I walk over there and to my surprise. I see an incredibly cute little puppy all alone underneath an old rusting piece of farm equipment, you know, I start I start to pet him and he just kind of lights up. He was sleeping he wakes up and he starts licking me and kind of squealing a little bit and Carlos comes over and I and I tell him to start recording because he has his camera. So he starts filming and then I call carry over and I'm obscuring her view from what I have in my hand. So Alex has turned with his back towards me and I see that he's holding something and I didn't know if he was like playing around with me. He was gonna like throw something at me or if he had like a little bunny. That's what my mind I was like, I hope it's a bunny and he turns around and then shows me a little longer which at that time. He didn't have that name. But he was this little just ball of puppies skin and fur and he had these tiny tiny ears. I've never seen ears so small in my life. They were the littlest things I'd ever seen and we have footage of the moment that I react to Lanka and Alex actually is putting all of that footage into a video that's going up on his YouTube channel at youtube.com slash Alex the Vagabond he's going to tell the story there to using the footage so definitely go check. Check that out if you want to see that moment, but I my jaw just drops and I almost fall to the floor just because I was just overwhelmed with cuteness. Yes funny like your jaw. I didn't know that you could open your mouth like that that big so I like dropped I obviously picked him up into my own arms and immediately my first thoughts were we have to take him from here, right? Because he was essentially living underneath a piece. Trash that was a was once a tractor and he like smelled like oil down there and you know dust and dirt. He was covered in fleas and ticks. That's the thing upon like further inspecting him and playing with him. We started noticing that he had fleas and ticks kind of just covered everywhere and all of the crevices of his body and his ears under his arms on his belly his tummy, you know like near like he just had them everywhere. It was it was Grim. Yeah, so then When Nero our driver picks him up from the extra skin on the back of his neck where the mother picks up a puppy usually and he looks at Lankan. He's like, he's a good pup because he didn't make any noise. He didn't protest he was just sitting there panting and smiling happy as could be like his tongue. He just he was smiling. We were instantly enraptured by Lanka but I don't think we were fully aware that we could adopt him and when Nero came over and Held Lanka and said oh, this is a really good dog. I kind of jokingly was like well, maybe we should just adopt him and then Nero said you totally can in my mind that wasn't an option. I didn't even go to that concept until later on when we got in back into the car to me. It was more. So I want to take him from here bring him to a vet because that was the plan and I looked at Alex and I said we will keep him with us and take care of him. Until we can find him a good home here in Sri Lanka. And then Alex turns to me and says no, we're gonna we're gonna try to bring him home. Yeah. I was kind of under the impression like if we're going to take him then we're going to like take him all the way home. And so that implemented into my mind and of course, that's my Ultimate Dream of finding him and I loved him so much right when I saw him, but I you know to do something like that. It's just so I knew how difficult it is just by Thinking about it. Like I had never experienced anything like that before but I'm a realist in those types of situations. And so for me, I was like, there's no way that we're going to be able to bring this street pup back to the United States. Yeah, it was, you know, kind of a pipe dream it was optimism bordering on insanity, but, you know having the support of Nero, and also we were there with an agent from the tourism board who assured us that it wasn't all that difficult. To adopt a dog in Sri Lanka and that he would assist us with getting paperwork in order. So having that extra bit of support was the extra little nudge that we needed to kind of commit and say okay we're going to do this. Yeah. It was definitely reassuring so we get into the bus and we decide to take him straight to a vet to get him checked out because of just the condition that he was in the fleas and ticks being all over him. We wanted to get them all removed and just Vet take a look at him. So we went to a vet that was on the side of the road in rural Sri Lanka. We just brought him in there. And we said can you just look at him we found him and we told her the circumstances and she said sure So she gave him an inspection and she cleaned him. She gave them like a little bath with just like a little bit of water and like a towel and she gave us some deworming pills. Yeah, then she essentially said that he's extremely healthy, but you know, he's at the age where he's either weaning or has just been weaned from his mothers teat. She thought teat the vet told us that he was about four weeks old which means you know, he's about a month and so he still needed to have breast milk. So she recommended that we go and find like a bottle of some sort or some way that we can feed him this breast milk. It's an alternative milk that she had their that she Gave to us so like a puppy. It's a dog formula like a breast milk formula. It tastes amazing, by the way, so we get back into the bus again, and we start doing a little bit of research once we're able to connect to Wi-Fi and we start to find out that the US has a law that does not allow you to import an animal a dog cat whatever it might be unless they are four months old. Old so that left us in our tracks and we were trying to figure out if there was any way around that is that really the law like we looked further into it. I think we were kind of under the impression. I was under the impression at least at all. We really needed was to get a bill like a certificate of health of good health from a vet and a puppy passport, which the veterinarian had given us. But when we googled it, we realized that that wasn't the case. Yeah that that Actually, no animals were allowed to be imported into the u.s. Unless they were four months of age or older and there was no way that we could kind of fake that Lanka was four months old. I mean, he literally looked like a tiny little bear. He's the size of a gopher. So we still did not think that was time to give up. We still wanted to figure out how we could do this. And in that time, you know, we were spending more time with him. We were kind of like bringing him back to life and feeding him and like we smuggled Um into our hotel room we were bonding with him as if he was like a little baby human because you know, somehow Alex new have to warm up a bottle. I don't even know how you did that like how you know how to a kettle. I just boiled some water and mixed in the milk powder, but you know, it definitely got carry very excited. She saw my potential father traits and was was like all about it. Also, there's a very funny video which I'll put in in the video on my channel where Carrie is like lying on the bed and she's got like a towel over her shoulder and she's got Lanka in in a human-like position and she's feeding him a bottle and he's just like sipping away at this milk. He's got milk all over his face and it quite literally looks like Carrie is breastfeeding Lanka and I just whenever I see that video, I just laugh out loud. I think it's so funny mind you I wasn't actually breastfeeding him. My breasts was nowhere near this situation. But every time Alex tells this story to like anyone friends. Only whatever might be he always says Carey was breastfeeding him. I said basically I'm I'm just like my my boob had nothing to do with this at your Lancome was sleeping on the boob was there okay, but there was a towel little puppy. There was a bottle I was definitely not breastfeeding or dog but it did look like so in between bottle feeding sessions. We were wrapping up this trip to Sri Lanka. We were leaving 48 in in 48 hours and we were scrambling Willing to try to find a solution to how we could get Lanka home in the beginning. We kind of both entertain the idea of like, hey, we'll just stay here tourist. Visa is three months long. That's all we really need to do is, you know, wait for three months and then we can fly home and bring Lanka and reality struck when we both realize that we had work obligations that we could not get out of and that we had to be a home. So we found a Saving Grace. Ace in our driver Nero who volunteered to watch Lanka and he had a daughter he has a daughter named Julia and Julia if you're listening. Thank you so much because it was at Julia's beckoning that Nero essentially offered to watch Lanka my favorite moment that I always think about, you know, about to say that I haven't been soon Euros sends a picture of long It's to his daughter Julia and he asks like hey, just so you know, like these people that I'm with these Americans are going to be adopting this dog, but we can he needs a home for a few months until he's old enough to go to the US. So we're going to watch him while he's a puppy and and he's like, what do you think about that and she sends a voice memo that and she goes but Daddy bring him home and we just melted it was the cutest thing ever. So now we always like joke around like that when we miss it and stuff is like so we thought we got really lucky and without without Nero and his family stepping up to the plate. It probably wouldn't have worked out the way that it did. We fly back to the states after a very difficult departure. Lots of Tears were shed and I actually get the word. Food poisoning I've ever had on the flight home. I projectile vomit in the plane and then I get off the plane where in Dubai and this is a funny story and I'll keep it short but we were transferring from Planes on the tarmac and I was in one of those buses and I had like it must have been scary for the rest of the people on the bus because absolutely scary for the rest of the people. I just like stood up and I start yanking on the trying to get the window open, but it's locked it won't open. And then I'm yelling at the guy like pull over pull over to the driver who's who's turning around? You're not even supposed to talk to the driver. When when you're you know on the tarmac anyways, I couldn't hold it. I just projectile vomit all over the door splatters everywhere. The driver Slams on the brakes opens the door even more so I had the worst return trip. But anyways, I'm over here just like holding my hand on my head remembering that moment because it was just so that's a whole nother story. But it is such a good one because it turned around and whole bus was just staring at me a ghast. And then this very kind Japanese couple the man pulls out like a handkerchief and he hands it to me and he's like full your face and I guess I had barf all over my beard. I was like trying to make everybody feel like he wasn't a zombie and I turned around and was like, he got sick some he ate some bad doll when we were in Sri Lanka and shrimp Curry. I wanted everybody to you feel like you were there with a nice kind of cute. Yeah, and I'll carry it would have been I would have like definitely looked like it was, you know, sparking off like some sort of post apocalyptic movie. It was scary. Anyways, that was a detour of the story. Where were we we have arrived in the United States and we have a three month waiting period of pure Agony as we're trying to figure out how to best get him home. So we were getting WhatsApp updates from Nero every day. He was so good about letting us know how long It was doing he was showing us pictures every day. So we got to see his growth every day. You know, we were watching him grow from these updates that we were getting, you know every couple of days from Nero and it was just crazy how much he was growing because when we first found him, he looked like a little bear he didn't look like a dog or a lie, but it was really cool to see him grow into a dog because he just got cuter and cuter. We were like, oh my God, he looks like a dog now because before even your aunt his aunt loves dogs, and she was like, I don't like I didn't think she was like is that some other kind of mammal species that I'm not aware of because he was just like like that's the best word. I can eat this on a word this is sound effect for him. He just looked like because he was just all squished. It was all squishy had so much fat burn skin. Like he looked like a little bear. He looked like a small like panda bear or one of the like a red panda, you know, those those kind of raccoon looking things. That's kind of what he looked like, so we're getting updates from Nero if One day went by that I didn't get an update from your I was all stressed because he was updating us so much that I was like, I hope everything's okay. Yeah carry kind of had sporadic panic attacks when there was radio silence essentially during that whole period of time we were working really diligently to try to find the best way to move forward the best way to get Lanka home safely efficiently and not super expensive Lee and what happened and what we figured out after multiple phone calls with every single Airline carrier that flew from Sri Lanka to the United States. There is no direct flight from the United States to Sri Lanka Sri Lanka is on the opposite side of the globe. So it's quite literally one of the farthest away places to try to adopt an animal from and it got it got stressful. So not only were we trying to figure out exactly how to get him out of Sri Lanka, but we were trying to figure out exactly how to get Him through transit to an like through another country and then into the US which ended up being so complicated. We were on the phone for so long. We got an argument over it. We got put on hold for like hours at a time and transferred through every single different department of these are lines until finally after about an hour and a half on hold. Somebody would just hang up on us and then they would just no be like, I don't understand what you're trying to do. So and people bring we're not the first people to ever do this. So, you know, but we kept reading on threads about you know, that they'll take the dog and they'll either either euthanize them or they'll take them in and not give him back to you and essentially if your paper transferring animals internationally is not a super straightforward thing. There is a lot of Hoops to jump through bureaucratic Hoops legal who You need to have your paperwork a hundred percent in order. You need to have clearances from veterinarians stating that your dog doesn't have any diseases you need to and every single country that you go through or exit has a different policy. So it was turning into this bureaucratic legal nightmare. We entertained all ideas flying there and and picking him up and then trying to bring him back with us in the cabin which was initially the the first idea and we spoke to all the carriers who allowed animals to travel with you in the cabin and none of them were in a position to confirm that we could actually do that leaving Sri Lanka. They also had weight, you know barriers like they were saying that he had to be under a certain way and we at the time saw how quickly he was growing and we didn't know for sure what size he would be on December 17. And we would be able to bring him back into the u.s. So, you know, we were looking at a month ahead going. Okay. Well are two three months ahead going. Okay. What is his size going to be like we don't know and so the last thing that we wanted to do was take on the responsibility of bringing him over here. But then doing it in a way that was more hurtful for him than anything and so potentially lead to his euthanization exactly. So that's what we wanted to avoid and whatever way that we could so then what ended up happening was the tourism board recommended a company called Pet Express Sri Lanka where he would be able to come into the u.s. And they would be able to fly him and they would also be able to take care of all of the paperwork needed to bring him into the u.s. So the company essentially all they do is Ship people's pets from to and from Sri Lanka. So they have the proper contacts with the government officials. They have their own veterinarian whose only job is to make sure that all of the paperwork is in order. They also booked the flights. They were using Qatar Airways, which had essentially direct flight from Colombo to Qatar and then Qatar to Los Angeles and in Qatar the company had a Facility where they were able to get the animals out of the crates clean the crates feed the animals let them rest walk them and then feed them and then put them back in the crates that had been cleaned for the next section of their Journey. So when we did all of the all of the heavy lifting in the thinking and the mathematics behind it all it just made sense for us to hire Pet Express Sri Lanka and we had nearly Oh who at that time? We before we even left Sri Lanka, we gave him a budget and we said we want to take care of you for helping us take care of our dog and we want to be able to make sure that we're paying for his food for him and his shots and anything that might need to happen before he comes in to the us so we took care of Nero. We asked him if he could help us, you know, kind of meet up with Peta. Especially Lanka and make sure that Pet Express your Lanka can check out Lanka to make sure that he's ready to go and also, you know to vet and check out Pet Express. Sure Lanka to make sure that they were legit exactly and it was nice having Nero there to kind of, you know, do that investigative work I guess for us and it was also helpful because I was the skeptic in that situation. I was like, I don't want to just give my dog to this any Airline and just see And so I ended up being able to talk to Pet Express Sri Lanka on the phone and I asked him if there was anybody I could speak to that they've sent it yesterday but it is use their use their services before and so he was like, well, it's funny you say that because there's actually a vet who I believe lives in San Diego. This is him talking to me. He's like she is a vet who just rescued a dog that she named Ella because she found her dog in Ella and she shipped her dog from Sri Lanka to LAX, which is exactly what we were going to do. So he gave me her phone number. I randomly called her up and I just said hi. I am calling because I found a puppy in Sri Lanka who I am trying to bring home to the US and I got in contact with this company called Pet Express Sri Lanka and they gave me your phone number. It was a legit phone number. She was a little Edge it human being legit veterinarian legit veterinarian. I looked her up on Google. It was all legit. So I started feeling better and better and better about the situation. Let's take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsor third love. I am currently wearing the most comfortable bra and I got it from third love. I took the quiz that they provide on third love.com and it asked me all sorts of questions. 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I do want to make a note about the Julia thing because for me, I think that like from the outside looking in you could think well, you know, Julia could have taken care of Lanka in Sri Lanka what Nero told us before. We left Sri Lanka was this he said I will take Take him in but we will not keep him longer than those three months. So I think Nero was concerned that maybe if we didn't take him. He didn't want Lanka to be back on the street because it's very common in Sri Lanka for people to bring puppies in and take care of the puppies and then let them go when they're older and bigger and they're adults which is what they do there. It's not something that I think is a good thing to do. You but it is something that is common there. So that was something that made us push a little push even more to make sure that we could get him here because he was already domesticated to at that time. And so I definitely didn't want him to be put back on the street. So we wanted to just like make sure that we continued on pushing to bring him back. So the morning of December 17th, we wake up extremely excited slightly anxious a little bit scared. We don't know, you know, what's going to happen. We don't even really know what Lanka is going to be like, you know, we only really knew him for three days when he was one month old now, he's four months old. He could be a little tornado, you know, we don't even know we don't even know what he could be. I was the scariest thing. Is that like we were Earning money and time and energy and so many emotions and we didn't know what he one would end up looking like or to what he what his character was a big he was going to because there was also in that compound there was a German Shepherd that was like in a in like a crate like a cage. It was kind of like the guard dog of that compound and and I was kind of worried actually that he might be part German Shepherd which would mean that you know, we were living in an apartment. In a one-bedroom apartment like having a German Shepherd in a one-bedroom apartment is like that's a lot of dog for a little house. So we were still excited if he was we were just stoked either way every day. So we drive to o'clock is when Lanka arrives we drive down to LAX. We have all of our paperwork in order. It's been sent through an in, you know via email. We've printed out all of our paperwork. We have it all in order and we go down to LA. X to the cargo section, which is not the main terminal there that you know Travelers go through its where cargo and and animals are shipped through so we go to this company. We have all of our paperwork in order and we get there and the company is just like the people are just kind of joking around taking their sweet time. There's really nobody in there. But getting anything done was like taking a very very long time and it was big star. To become like difficult to to just kind of accept like tensions were running. I it was really frustrating to me in particular and Alex was trying to keep me like cool calm and collected but I was pretty upset with them because first off we have traveled from Sri Lanka three months ago, and we've been waiting every day for three months. I remember waking up that morning and thinking oh my God 1 p.m. I have to wait until 1 p.m. So we There and just their careless demeanor and the fact that they you know, they could tell I was like we're here to pick up our daughter like we told them the story and they just it didn't feel like they cared at all. So, you know that that moment wasn't butterflies and rainbows at all. It was kind of frustrating. Yeah, I just felt like their attitude towards the whole thing was just kind of cold and you know, maybe they were just jaded from having dealt. With this type of stuff for so long. But anyways, regardless we gave them our paperwork. It was all in order but then they told us that one thing was missing. We needed a stamp from the Customs Department. Luckily the Customs Department was only a couple miles away. So we jump in the car hightail it over to the Customs Department, which was super efficient is actually like incredibly surprising the whole process took less than 10 minutes. We were in and out of there. We got the proper stamps. And they confirmed that the documents had been sent electronically to the cargo company and that we should be good and approved to release Lanka. So we drive back to the cargo company and then and then they looked at our paperwork and they were like the stamps not here when we had just watched them stamp the paperwork, but there's like a hundred pieces of paper in this document chain. So we Not know exactly where the stamp was, but we were trying to assure them like we just went there. They just stamped it. They just told us everything is good. We just wanted to get Lanka out of his crate because he had been in there for a while. They did let him out in Qatar, but we just knew that you know, it just like a human being on a flight from you know, Qatar to the u.s. You're over it. You want to get out you want to stretch your legs and I actually when you're in a crate totally dark under there I know and they were like he's right back here and I'm like great, okay. I'm just get him. Goodbye Dom out. That's what Carrie was like honestly Wicked Witch of the West is the girl whatever we reluctantly accept that they can't find the stamp even though we've assured them that it's there. So we say, okay. Well, we're going to go back to the customs office and we're going to double check with them that it's been stamped and we're going to make sure that you guys have received it. Even if we have to have them call you and they said great so we drive. Back to customs the Customs guy looks at me. Like hey, man, what are you doing back here? And I told him what happened. He said no, look here's the stamp. He showed it what he showed me where it was and he assured me that the files have been sent electronically. So we went back to the cargo company show them the stamp. Tell them to check their email. They refresh it the emails there and lo and behold Lanka is good to be released. So they tell us to go outside and wait So that was the moment where I started to feel better in mind you Wicked Witch of the West is not the way it was. It was more. So like can you guys please and like usually I'm very calm cool and collected and so seeing me get like just slightly assertive can be like, you know a shocker. So anyways, I just was being assertive and making sure that we got that handled and so Lanka coming out in his crate and Alex and I just standing there like waiting for him just so excited and setting him down and opening his cage and looking at him and like just getting over any like argument that Alex and I had had we just those just like flew out of our minds and out of the whole entire situation because this was the moment that we had been waiting for and he was just so sweet and he just started to Like us right away. He was also like he had you know, soiled his crate. There was a very large turd and I cared zero I just pulled my help him. I mean like he had like they had put down some like puppy pads. So he had kind of like smushed all that stuff in the corner and was sitting on the opposite side, but he did smell like he smelled horrible but he was so cute. We got him out of there. We dumped out the crate. Luckily. There was a hose right there. We washed it out through all the stuff in the car with brought long con the car we had Treats and we had everything lined up for him. And he was just so utterly happy. So happy to see us. He just kept licking our faces and he was and then all of a sudden he just sat down and Carries lap and he just fell asleep. He was just so comfortable and we had all these like phones for him and stuff to snack on on the way home in the car. And you know, I just remember that moment thinking like all of this was worth it because you know, it was emotional. It was hard. It did cost us money and it you know, but at the end of the day not only did we love this dog right away and had we loved him since the moment that we saw him. It was also a great learning experience for us in our relationship. It was a test to us and like if we could get through something that was not easy, you know, a lot of people when we first started going through it. We're like, you know, my mom was like this is like it feels like you're adopting a child and I'm like, well, we kind of are I'm not relating it to that at all because of human is different from a dog, but like it did feel like you know, like we were adopting, you know a child bringing him here and with any with any couple and in moments and making big life decisions like this because this was not a little decision. There's always going to be stressed. There's always going to be Be so much emotion wrapped up in everything and doubt and fear. We were scared but we wanted the same outcome and I think that's what really helped us. And we understood what we were going through and so we were there for each other throughout the whole process and there was a light at the end of the tunnel, you know, it was Lanka and are on are like beautiful little Street pup at home and safe and like a family and so It's what we wanted, you know, and and as stressful as it was at times when I look back on it. It's just all pure magic to me because we did it and I think that like we were I mean you can call it luck. You can call it whatever you want. But Lanka is the best dog. He is so calm and loving and loyal and quiet. He doesn't bark. He's not annoying. He is literally like the perfect dog and I think that all of the discomfort all of the stress and all of the the, you know Hoops that we had to jump through it all paid off in the long run because now we just have this incredible companion and I don't even remember what life was like before Lanka, you know and taking care of him. Like for us has been really important and part of its just like another dynamic in our relationship where you know, we're In care of this living thing together and we have to sort out in organized like who's going to be gone who's going to take care of the dog, like does he need to be dropped off at we have this like really great place that we found near our house that sort of this ranch-style boarding place where he gets to run around with other dogs that like they loved him there. So we've like built this really great relationship with them. So like all of the fears that we had about. Oh my gosh, like are we going to be able to do this when we travel like How are we we can't depend on family all of the time for this and so it's essentially like we found this child care, you know, like it's the same type of feeling where you're like, okay, do we trust this place? Are they going to take good care of the dog when we travel and and it's just been a seamless process ever since and we're doing it and we're able to do it really well. And to be honest if I was a dog, I would like to be Lanka I would have to agree with that. Yeah. It's taught us so much and I think that the struggle The hardship and the and the you know, the the doubt really all of that in the long run was just trivial and it all paid off so big and yeah, I can't imagine what life would be like without him now. No, he is such an important part of our everyday life in our family now and I couldn't imagine not having him in our lives at all. Like he runs with Alex he goes on these awesome dog runs. Yes, and they go 5 miles or more sometimes in Lanka is like just loving and eating it up and he's just such a great companion and he loves hiking and we take him off the leash sometimes and he's so good on a hike and he stays right by her side. He really has that pack mentality when he's with us and you can just see the love in his eyes and he's also just so Zen when I look across the room and I see his eyes just like he's like this little buddha like this little Sri Lankan Buddha. Yeah, it's actually bizarre. Sometimes I wonder like if he's some sort of like, you know Spirit reincarnate like because he has very powerful eyes and he makes a lot of eye contact and dogs don't usually make a lot of people will say that he has human eyes and that he's very human-like, which is so bizarre, but he truly is if there's a lesson from this whole thing is that it's not impossible to do the impossible if you Do you know believe in it? And if you dedicate if you dedicate yourself to it, and yeah, it's going to take time and energy and money, but you know doing the right thing. It's not always easy, but it's still the right thing to do and also having you like having each other having each other to depend on through the process like I don't think I would have done this without you and I know that you told me months ago. Like when we were in the thick of it you were like, I wouldn't have done this without you and so having each other in that process to be able to add to our life and give like there's such a like beneficial element to our life now having Lanka. I think that there's a lot of lessons to be learned in it. And I think it's really special looking back that you know, I value our relationship even more so from going through that experience because To be honest with you, like having kids is something that Alex and I have talked about in something that when we first started dating we talked about and seeing you help navigate the situation and seeing you, you know calling the airline and saying no we want to make sure that he's with us or or even just talking to Nero and making sure that you know asking your oh what a Lanka seating and all of these things like was for me. Kind of a glimpse into without even expecting it and without even looking for that. I just remember thinking wow, like he has taken ownership of this and he's not really this wasn't about you. This was about the dog and about bringing him home and it was about you know, how I felt and so just watching you navigate that and figure it out was really really cool for me to see in it like made me love you even more Baby, well, thank you and thank you for having me on the podcast to talk about this special moment. And you know, I think that it's been a while. You know, I think that people have obviously been asking for this story to be told for a long time and quite honestly it is kind of a long and complicated story which is why we took a long time to to tell it but you know There is a happy ending there is a happy ending Lanka is healthy happy and he is currently napping in the living room and he couldn't be happier and neither. Could we so thank you for having me on the podcast. Thank you for being here. Thank you all so much for listening to this episode. I hope that you loved it. If you want to have more Lanka you can go to at lucky Lanka. No, it's at lucky underscore Lanka and if you want More salt sugar you can go to axle sugar. Cocoa. That's sou l-s-u GA our CEO. And for more Alex. Can you tell us where to find you? My Instagram is Alex the Vagabond. My YouTube is Alex the Vagabond. There's going to be a video that Carrie and I shot together that has all the footage and more in-depth the story of Lanka so you can check that out there on YouTube and also the main Channel vagabrothers youtube.com slash vagabrothers. I think we should do the sole Sugarman Went together today. So what I'm feeling right now is talking about overcoming The Impossible like you were saying a second ago think of something that you really want to do whether it be starting a business or learning to play the guitar or being comfortable singing on stage. Think about something that you really want to do, but you're too afraid to do Envision it take a moment breathe that in breathe in that passion. And let go of that fear. It will take time. It will take energy. It will take action to move past that fear. But I encourage you to take little baby steps in the direction of overcoming that fear and embracing whatever that passion might be because the feeling of pushing out of your comfort zone and grabbing hold of your own destiny and doing the things that you love and that you're passionate about is one of the most Beautiful feelings on the planet and I really want everybody who's listening to be able to experience that. I love you guys to the moon and back and I will see you and talk to you in an all new episode of Soul sugar coming up next week. Thank you all so much for tuning in to today's episode. I hope that you enjoyed it while you're waiting for our next episode come chat with us over on the Instagram. It's at Soul sugar. Cocoa. That's at SSO you LSU GA R. Co we give you a daily dose of inspiration over there? Also, it is the best place for us to communicate together and I love hearing feedback and advice from you guys over there. As well so definitely come on over and let's be friends there.
In this episode of Soul Sugar — we are joined by Alex The Vagabond to chat the story of how he and Carrie Rad adopted their Sri Lankan street dog back in September 2018. They discuss the entire story from A-Z, how they transported Lanka to the United States, and the trials and triumphs they experienced along the way. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Find Lanka on Instagram: @lucky_lanka https://www.instagram.com/lucky_lanka/ Find Alex on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexthevagabond/ Find Carrie on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carrierad/ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ThirdLove — For 15% off your first order, go to thirdlove.com/soulsugar. Hemp Fusion — For 20% off and free shipping, go to hempfusion.com and use promo code SOUL SUGAR. Hemp Fusion can ship anywhere in the US. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Welcome to Soul Sugar. I’m your host Carrie Rad! You might know me from my videos on YouTube. I love to chat about all things self care, self love, living our very best lives, and finding our inner magic. Soul Sugar is a community of blooming soul seekers. Like sugar for your soul. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ CONTACT SOUL SUGAR — ➭ If you are a listener, you can get in touch with us here: soulsugarpodcast@gmail.com ➭ If you are a business, you can get in touch with us here: soulsugarco@gmail.com ➭ Follow Soul Sugar on Instagram @soulsugarco https://www.instagram.com/soulsugarco/ FOLLOW CARRIE RAD — ➭ Follow Carrie Rad on Instagram @carrierad https://www.instagram.com/carrierad/ ➭ Follow Carrie Rad on YouTube: Carrie Rad https://www.youtube.com/user/CarrieRad/featured ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Production Manager — Samantha Belgarde https://www.instagram.com/samclementebelgarde/ If you enjoy listening to Soul Sugar Podcast — please rate and review the podcast! 