Creating A Global Movement

So many people now involved

Most people reading this will probably know I started this mission in 2022 by feeding a single street dog myself. Her name was Lucky and you can read her story here.

From that single dog has grown a movement of epic proportions and I wanted to try showcase just how many people are involved and how much change is happening.

I have to pinch myself that these numbers are real…

25,000 Dogs Sterilised

Just this week we sterilised the 25,000th dog. Fittingly it was one here on the island of Koh Samui where it all started. Some of the stats around our sterilising (it means to neuter or spay) are beyond exciting…

• We now have 8 partners in 3 countries (Thailand, Sri Lanka and Indonesia)

• We are now funding the sterilising of around 5000 dogs per month

• Sterilising 25,000 dogs means we have stopped a quarter of a million puppies being born into suffering (counting on approx 10 puppies per dog)

The plans to ramp this up for the rest of this year and especially into 2025 are even more ambitious.

While we build the partnerships and provide the funding there are close to 100 people out there on the ground doing the hard work of catching, operating on and safely returning the dogs to their communities. They are the true heroes.

Dogs Number 26, 27 & 28 - Billy Rusty And Sandy

While the huge numbers are so compelling I find the individual dogs are the ones that really melt my heart. In 2024 alone we have now re-homed 28 dogs both in Thailand and around the world.

• Billy. He arrived in Singapore after his horrific slashing.

• Sandy and Rusty Both found suffering but now snuggled up in England

It’s really hard to explain just how many people are involved in getting them to their homes. The wonderful kind people who adopt these dogs and all the care they get during their rescues. For a dog like Billy I am not exaggerating when I say there are up to 50 people who helped him at various stages.

Building Out A Thai Team

I’m very conscious of the fact that I am in Thailand and we are never going to solve the dog problem here with foreign staff alone. Happy Doggo needs to be led by local people in the countries it operates in and integrate into the community. That process has started. Seeing our team in our new offices with the logo on the wall makes me so proud.

The following slide is from one of our internal decks. You can see just how fast we are trying to scale up. Most of these people will be rolling our sterilising and local operations to help more dogs on the ground as quickly as we possibly can.

You are probably as blown away by the scale of the growth as I am nervous about how to fund it all and the logistics involved. Luckily there are some outstanding people working on this behind the scenes.

Local Support For Tina’s Hospital

The work is really ramping up on Tina’s Hospital. Not just from a design perspective with our wonderful pro bono partners but also on the ground.

We had a meeting with the Mayor of Samui last week about building the public road into the hospital for us and the feedback has been excellent. Explaining our big picture thinking and seeing it so well received by key local decision makers was something I’d long been dreaming of.

An Online Army Of Dog Lovers

If you look through the various areas I’ve outlined above there are a couple of hundred people already involved in various ways thanks to what has been created at Happy Doggo. A lot of dog lovers changing the world. A global movement.

What makes this work though is the 1000s of other people around the world supporting, sharing content and commenting with kind words and gestures. I feel it every single day and am always taken aback by people’s generosity in so many ways.

Like little Eve here and her story after moving to England and all who supported her recent climb. Thats one of 100 examples I could have picked.

Things are getting scarily big and very expensive and tricky to run logistically but the support online is the key element. I feel so many people want to help the dogs in any way possible even if they are half way across the world. That support takes my breath away on a daily basis. In a world with so much bad news and dark moments I think this is a little corner of the world that shows positive change can happen.

I wanted to write this update because I always get outsized credit. In comments, media coverage and in person. As you can clearly see this is a team effort and you reading this are very much part of that.

All I can do is keep dreaming even bigger and figuring out ways to save even more dogs because they are the ones suffering right now.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Big Love

Niall

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