Deep Soul Searching

Now is the time to double down

As weeks go this has been one of the toughest yet saving the street dogs. I should be used to it at this stage, as bad news is always just around the corner but it still has a way of smacking you in the face.

My goal is always to…

1. Share upbeat and positive content about dogs to inspire change

2. Use setbacks as fuel to drive even bigger change

By the end of this update you will see that both those things will be more true than ever, but my God was it tough to get there…

A Brutal Week

As I often say here I only share a very small slice of the bad stuff. I would say about 10% but even that small amount puts some people off and we always lose followers. I do think it is important for me to share some of the tough times.

Before I get to the positive stuff I think it’s worth looking at the challenges…

• 3 Dogs poisoned within 100 yards of Happy Doggo Land.

• 1 died, 1 missing presumed dead and the other survived

• Worried that our own dogs like Panda (below) had been poisoned

• 4 other dogs have gone missing from my feeding round (including Twix, Squiggles and Wiggles).

The video explains the situation well and is not too graphic. The brutal part is that is happened so close to where we are based. It shook us to our very core.

An Hour Where I wanted To Give Up

I know a lot of people in animal rescue. Giving up is often discussed. Sometimes the sheer scale of the suffering, how helpless we feel and how cruel humans can be is enough to break people.

I’m not ashamed to say I felt like that for an hour this week. I questioned everything. Whats the point? Can we ever change humans? Can my body and mind take this much pain?

We knew the dogs who died well. We’d meet them daily as we walked our own sick dogs. They’d come out and play like they are here with Super Mario. Seeing such innocent creatures die and suffer so much is monumentally hard to take.

When you put so much time and effort into helping dogs, saving them and ending their suffering yet come across people trying to kill, harm and torture them it really does shake you.

I couldn’t think what else to do and my brain was scrambled so I went for a run…

A Run That Changed All My Thinking

I like to run because it helps my mental health. Recently with so much bad news and blows to absorb I’ve not been running enough. Things can spiral.

When all the bad news hit this week I just downed all tools and put the shoes on and ran the longest I have in over 2 years. I needed to clear my head and think about how to bounce back from so many knocks.

I put Tina’s song on repeat and ran for 80 minutes. I thought about her non stop and what she would want me to do. When I set off on that run I was empty, broken and lost. Her big happy face kept smiling at me in my head saying to push on and help her friends even more.

By the time I sat down I was clear headed, focused and more determined than ever. All thought of quitting was gone and with Tina’s memories I decided to dive into full action mode. You can’t let cruelty win. Hope and positivity always need to prevail.

A List Of Great Things Happening

The thing about this mission is that the bad things really are so heartbreaking that they tend to be all consuming. I sometimes can’t see the wood from the trees.

Thats why I wanted to write this list of 10 great things happening right now…

1. In 10 days time we will fund our 100,000th sterilization

2. We have now re-homed 106 dogs in Thailand and around the world

3. We have just served the 1 millionth home cooked meal to a street dog

4. Little Noodles is back from her huge surgery and will walk again

5. Big Jada has had her huge growth removed. She survived!

6. Britney Spears has settled in well in Scotland. She is home!

7. Moolah who had been doused in Gasoline saved and her community educated

8. Maximus has made a full recovery and is going up for adoption

9. Shaggy and Bianca will leave to America this week. Dogs 107 and 108 re-homed.

10. Dozens of dogs treated this week in the community and at Happy Doggo Land.

It’s really important to remember that the good stuff is outweighing the bad. It doesn’t always feel that way in person so writing them down here helps me.

While we don’t win all the battles seeing Britney in her bed in Scotland and Anthony Hopkins smiling again are the wins we need to keep striving for.

Donation Day

2 days after my run and with ideas crystalizing in my head I did something I hadn’t done before…I asked for monthly donations in this short video. It is all part of trying to ramp things up further in the areas I have been speaking about…

• Education

• Animal abuse prosecutions

• More community engagement

I don’t like asking for donations as I prefer people to just follow along and support us when they can. But I decided that if I am to push on and really make lasting change I need to get even more serious. You can donate monthly here or also just subscribe to this newsletter.

We’ve done amazing things with funding sterilizing at scale, feeding dogs and treating so many but I need to get backing to make even more change. We don’t spend a penny on advertising or marketing or have any institutional donors. The change we can make is because of people like you reading here.

You can become a monthly donor here as it helps us plan so much more.

Conclusion - Go Big Or Go Home

I promised I’d end positively. The week knocked the stuffing out of me but it also just made me realize I need to be braver, stronger and think bigger.

We are saving a lot of dogs already but every single one of these creatures are voiceless. It’s very hard for me to admit we can never save them all but I need to drive Happy Doggo into something bigger that tips the balance back in the dog’s favor even more. We can and will save even more lives.

Sometimes 1 step back can lead to 2 giant steps forward and that is the way I am thinking right now. It’s time to rally the troops, think even bigger and save more lives. The dogs need us.

Thank you for the support and I’ll be back with super upbeat positive news next week with some team wins. No more bad news! Have a lovely end to the weekend wherever you are in the world!

Big Love

Niall

P.S You can support the mission by just subscribing to this newsletter or donating to Happy Doggo here.