My 5 Pledges For 2023

This won't be easy

It isn’t even a full year since I started helping dogs but this vocation of mine has grown legs of it’s own. I guess I always expected to get this far but perhaps not for another 3-4 years and certainly not with this level of public support and general interest.

I’m a big fan of writing down the crazy ideas in my head and sharing them publicly here because it makes me then have to try and make them happen.

1. Make Everything 10X Bigger

When I sat down at the end of the year and looked at the cold hard numbers for 2022 they felt both impressive to me personally but also tiny in terms of fixing the global street dog problem…

• 302 Dogs Sterilised

• Approx 140 vet visits

• 47,000 Meals served

• 23 Dogs re-homed

What that equates to is roughly 100 dogs who are with us today who would otherwise be dead. More importantly the sterilising means that 10,000+ puppies won’t be born into suffering. Thats the really important part.

I like those numbers but this year I’ve decided to 10X everything. That means…

• 3000 Dogs sterilised

• Half a million meals served

• 250 dogs re-homed

Given how challenging 2022 was, it would be hard enough to double what has been done last year but I’m committing to making everything 10 times bigger. Yikes!

2. Stop Being Scared

Fear is the thing that holds so many of us back. It’s holding me back right now. I ask myself the same type of questions every single day…

• What if the support for my project dries up?

• Am I really able to do this?

• I have no experience and am making this up as I go along so should I not just stay in my lane?

• You can manage what you are doing now why not just keep it like this and have a quieter life?

There is so much suffering out there that I just have to lose all fear this year and shoot for the stars in terms of size and scale. 2023 will be a huge step into the unknown but I’ll have to do it for the sake of the dogs.

3. Link Every Decision I Make To The Welfare Of Dogs

I always use the example of the 2 young girls who have asked their parents to send me a portion of their pocket money to help the dogs. As this grows and I need to allocate resources (money or my time) it would be very easy to lose focus on why I started this… The 500 million street dogs who suffer on a daily basis.

Examples of questions I have to ask myself include…

• Will talking to this journalist for a story actually help dogs or is it just for ego?

• Planting these trees at the land makes it look nice but is that actually helping dogs in the long run?

• Is a video feeding dogs Christmas dinner really going to help them?

These things will raise awareness, give the dogs a voice and make it a nice place for the dogs and people to visit but it all has to feed back into the only metric that matters…improving the lives of street dogs.

4. Accept Offers Of Help And Build A Global Community

I’m the first to admit I’ve been really bad at this. I’m too “in the trenches” on a daily basis. People are absolutely screaming out to help in any way they can from volunteering to adopting to helping with admin and 100 other different suggestions.

I’m actually the road block at the moment. The bottleneck. I’m really protective of things like my Instagram account and not making it commercial or even getting help to reply to the 100s of messages i get a day. I want to keep that personal touch with everything but I also need to find ways for people to come on this journey with me because ultimately that is the only way to help millions of dogs.

5. Stay Sober And Focused

The lives of so many dogs depend on me now. While my primary aim is to build out a system that no longer depends on just one person I know that I need to stay sober. It’s been 2 years now since I had a drink and my mental health is vastly improved.

I also know that the next year will bring many possible distractions. I can see them popping up already in my inbox or people reaching out with things that would normally be tempting. I am pledging to stay 100% focused and unless it helps the dogs I won’t do it.

It might not seem like the most important pledge of the 5 but it probably is. The best way to look after more dogs at scale is to keep myself fit, sober and fully focused.

Slow and steady will not win the race on this one as there are 8 million street dogs in Thailand and 500 million around the world. I have to use the unique position I now find myself in and the support I have to change the fate of these voiceless dogs around the world.

I’m pretty confident I can do everything outlined above in 2023 even if I know it is insanely challenging. I’m also crazy enough to believe that if I am brave enough and tap into the support I could even find a way to do X50 this year. Thats the way I need to be thinking.

To all those following along and supporting me in the many ways you do I truly believe I am doing this for you as well. I might be at the forefront of it but I feel like dog lovers around the world want this to work. I won’t let anybody down.

Time for me to crack on.

Big love

Niall

P.S If you like what I am doing and want to support me you can always donate here or on Paypal or just subscribe to this newsletter.