Being At The Coal Face

Warp speed is happening now

Typically when charity organisations send out emails from their CEO they are carefully worded, proof read and serious in tone. I prefer to just write as it comes out of my head and more importantly our of my heart. A stream of consciousness.

In the last 2-3 months things have been scaling up so fast. It’s important to remember the reason for that…helping more dogs. The problem is so big and so widespread, with the suffering so severe that I feel we can never move fast enough. Dog’s lives depend on it.

I wanted to share a little about my world and what is happening on a macro level but also on a micro level…

Saving One Single Dog - Matilda

As I write this little Matilda is at my feet with Hank. She was hit by a truck last week and left for dead. Luckily a kind local lady covered her up and got her to us the next morning. Matilda has some horrible injuries…

• Broken pelvis

• Broken ankle

• Torn ACL

• Anemia, blood parasites and low platelets

The result is that she can’t stand up. Because of her poor blood we can’t operate on her for another 7 days at least as she would bleed to death. So we have to help her pee, help her eat and ease her pain. She’s very brave.

It’s going to be a months long recovery for Matilda that could cost over $2000 but this sweet girl had no other options. She would have died alone. She reminds me of why I do this…

35,000 Dogs Sterilised So Far

Any time I share the number of dogs sterilised I think it can sort of go over all our heads. It’s such a preposterously big number that it can feel hard to comprehend.

So what is a sterilisation?

• An operation to stop puppies being born

• Is carried out on both males and females

• Also known as neutering or spaying

• The dog has the operation under anesthesia

• Each operation costs between $25-$50 depending where we fund it

• Each operation stops dozens of puppies being born into suffering

• The operations also help stem other health issues for the dogs

So you can see just how big and complex a thing this is to do. Especially when we have 10 partners in 3 countries doing this. We now fund 6000 of these every single month. 35,000 dogs this year.

By sterilising 6000 a month that means 50,000 puppies are being stopped being born into suffering. 50,000!

Sick Dogs Crammed In Everywhere

We don’t take dogs in at Happy Doggo that we don’t have a clear plan for. I’ve spoken before about how against shelters I am that just gather up endless dogs with no exit plans. We are crammed at the moment but there is lot of hope…

• Leo has had a successful amputation

• Jackson recovering from serious puncture wounds

• Larry has ongoing tests and will travel to hospital this week

• Big Mac and Jennifer are in end of life care for kidney failure.

We have dogs in every spare room, office and double stacked in places. Some might think this is stressful but this is actually the most rewarding bit of what we do. So many dogs are having their lives positively impacted and have hope again.

Local Community Action

What has really been happening most of late is interaction within the local Thai communities. It has been an absolute game changer in the last couple of months…

• We provide cooked food for 1000 dogs per day

• Medicines for over 250 dogs per month

• Full employment for 14 locals on Samui

• Employment for 40+ more people via our sterilising funding with 10 partners

I’m very passionate about the the street dogs being a local problem that needs to be tackled with locals and not just some blow in foreigners like me. Only through real community engagement and education will we truly fix the problem globally.

Tina’s Magical Road

Having sick dogs everywhere is not ideal. It feels like we are already running a hospital except we don’t have the actual building or machines yet. We spend our time running back and forwards to vets and spending a fortune on treatments and transport.

This week we’ve been building the concrete road leading into the hospital. It’s a huge step and a very symbolic one. I think Tina would be proud but as I keep telling her it can’t come quick enough. Things are really moving now.

Numbers Are Great But Matilda Is Even More Important

It’s hard to explain the mental toll getting the team in place to do all this takes. This week I had extreme exhaustion and an eye injury while having to keep the show on the road. What I’m starting to see now though is the hard work building the teams to do this is starting to bear fruit. Along with online support and donors this is a huge international team lead mission now.

The reason I share Matilda’s story is because she is beside me. She reminds me as I write this at 11.30pm on a Sunday night when I’d rather be in bed why I do this.

Saving 1000s of dogs is all well and good but saving one single life and giving her a chance is what gives me hope and the drive to do more. It keeps me grounded to the mission.

I’ve been kicked in the face so many times in the last 6 months trying to make this all work. You constantly get knocked down helping dogs and managing so many people is a challenge. There are 500 million street dogs in the world who need help. A couple of years ago I started by helping 10-20 myself but now we are up to helping 1000s every single month. I like to write these emails as they remind me of the progress and that things are changing.

As always I can’t thank you enough for all the support because I truly could not do a 10th of this without you. I hope you all have a lovely end to your weekend wherever you are in the world.

Big Love

Niall

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