When I started this project I naively thought I would just be out there feeding dogs and sailing around carefree on my bike. Thats how it went for a couple of days but it has quickly scaled up into something completely different.
Day to day can now feel like a mixture between being in a hospital triage centre and out on a battlefield with an army. That might sound like a complete over exaggeration but it is very much the case for the street and jungle dogs.
Broken limbs, puppies being born daily, dogs with open wounds, severe illness, dogs being dumped, dogs being attacked by humans, massive fights and so on. You never know what you are going to walk into. I don’t tend to share the really bad stories as I don’t think people need to see that.
Arnie here was one recent example who needed patching up and they come along on a near daily basis.
It’s not what I expected to be doing but I often find myself making life of death decisions now.
The Perfect Example - Pipsqueak
For those who follow on social media you will have seen Pipsqueak. She is the perfect example of one of these types of decisions. She was the runt of the litter and not able to eat on a daily basis in her pack of 12 dogs. She was too scared and was fading badly.
To put it simply she would not have survived much longer on her own in the jungle. I decided I had to pull her out immediately and find a solution.
Taking her in might seem like a simple and obvious decision to many but this is what it entails…
Finding her an emergency foster home for 48 hours
Finding her a long term home (In the UK this time)
Finding her a short term foster home while she gets her paperwork to travel
Getting her vaccinated, sterilised, fed and bulked up
Communicating with dozens of people interested in her
I can’t explain how lucky Pipsqueak is. I have 11 other puppies like her that I have to decide to leave on the street. The decision is that they will have to make it (with human support) where they are for now. I can just about manage the 3 dogs I have on the go at the moment for re-homing but any more would be impossible with the current set up.
Big Picture Progress
Some people will be reading this and wondering where the bigger picture stuff is at. I’ve been at this for 5 months now and I’m making some good progress but am I really going to get to the 10,000 dogs per month I set out to save initially? Well lets look at where I am so far…
Feeding around 80 dogs per day
Sterilised 45 Dogs (this will stop over 1000 puppies being born)
Over 40 vet visits with sick dogs
Re-homed or in the process of re-homing 6 dogs
Thats all well and good but it is still very much like treating a heart attack with a sticky plaster. It’s too little and I am only one person.
I have started the process to do two very important things to scale this…
Setting up a foundation in Thailand. This will allow me to expand, bring people on board and ultimately help a lot more dogs a lot faster
A Physical location. Absolutely essential to scale everything up.
I’ll share more in the next couple of updates but my plan is to get from the current 80 dogs per day to closer to 300-400 by the end of the summer with all other numbers going up accordingly. Everything is nearly in place.
Short Term Help - The Things That Work
I always say that I feel there are so many people willing me on and supporting from behind their phone and computer screens. This is vitally important and I see it helping in these three ways…
Social media audience. This helps me find homes for the dogs and to find solutions to the problems that arise. Somebody somewhere might just see a dog they like or know someone who can help. Social media is my megaphone to help the dogs.
Donations. I meet so many problems every single day. Money is just a way of fixing those problems and moving on to the next one. You can help by donating here.
Moral support. Messages, likes and people saying nice things. It might not seem like a massively important thing but I often find a message or comment I get somewhere can lift me up to tackle the next challenge at a tough time.
I’m also very conscious that the life of death decisions can take a massive toll on me personally. I find myself going to bed these days at 8.30-9pm and I know other volunteers are the same. Although it might feel like slacking some good exercise and downtime is essential to help keep the energy for the bigger picture.
As always thanks for taking the time to read these emails. I struggle with replying to messages on social but I like to think these mails give an overview of what I am doing and how I plan to help more dogs as quickly as possible.
Take care of yourselves wherever you are reading this.
Niall
P.S You can donate here. What would be really useful are any monthly donations (you can click on the monthly tab) as this helps with planning for building out the foundation and getting dogs adopted. Monthly donations help me think bigger about what I can do in the coming months.
You are doing a fantastic job Niall! I appreciate all of the love, time and care that you are giving and know you are making a world of difference to those precious dogs.
You’re AWESOME