We Fixed An Island

A beautiful line in the sand

I often share challenging situations I face with dogs who are sick or who have been abused. Today comes news from the other end of the scale. The most incredible win and unbelievable update for the street dogs we help here in Koh Samui.

We’ve hit a huge milestone way quicker than even we expected…

Koh Samui Is Now 90-95% Fixed

This is the island I live on and where everything started. By the end of September we have now…

• Sterilised 3800 Dogs on Koh Samui.

• It’s taken 2.5 years to get to this number.

• We’ve spent over $175,000 doing this.

• We’ve now reached 90-95% coverage of dogs sterilised on the island.

• We have a plan in place to keep it at this level on an ongoing basis.

When I started this mission I was so incredibly naive that I thought all I had to do was feed dogs and take the odd one to the vets. Being brutally honest I didn’t even know what sterilising was as recently as 2022.

How It All Started

I wrote this post on the 31st March 2022 about starting to sterilise dogs. I’d bought myself a second hand jeep and a couple of dog boxes. As I headed off to get my very first dog, Mr Fox, I was nervous and only had crazy dreams in my head.

What I do remember is how hard it was for 6-8 months I was doing them alone. I wanted to feel the pain, understand the problems and catch the dogs myself. I got bitten 3 times and crawled under many shacks and ran up hills and into rivers after dogs. I only managed to do 302 sterilisations in those first 8 months as I had to drive 2 per day to the vets myself.

That experience was absolutely crucial in forming my understanding of how hard it is but also how important this was for the dogs. In my local area I could see the small difference it was making. It was a lightbulb moment in my head. This was how you improved not just a few dozens lives but 1000s.

After those 8 months I decided to make a huge change. I would focus on raising money and awareness with Happy Doggo to accelerate sterilising both on Koh Samui and around the world.

A Huge Team Effort With Our Partners

What I very quickly realised from sterilising the dogs myself was that it would be impossible to fix this problem alone. It is incredibly hard to catch dogs, interact with the community, get them operated on and return them safely.

We needed partners. We have two brilliant ones with RDF here on the island and Soi Dog nationally. We figured out the quickest way to get things done was to fund them both at scale and turbo charge the sterilising.

Seeing the Happy Doggo logo beside another charity and team work happening in the space to collectively help the dogs never gets old for me. You can do a little bit on your own but together as part of a team we can all achieve so much more.

100% Coverage Is Impossible

We can never get to all dogs sterilised in any given area for a number of reasons including…

• Some locals won’t allow their dogs to be done

• Dog breeders who want to make money from puppies

• Dogs being brought in by migrant workers

By getting to 90-95% though it means the number of dogs suffering is decreasing massively. I share stories of the suffering of Bowie (Husky abandoned with her puppies) or Anthony Hopkins (skin disease) because the island was overflowing with street dogs. With the numbers capped and a tiny amount of new dogs appearing we can focus on quality of life and wonderful care for a smaller group of dogs.

The street dog problem will never be 100% fixed but we’ve done the hardest part here on the island. As well as us dog people the locals and tourists are starting to notice a big improvement.

Koh Samui Was Just The Start

While September was about getting the Island to 90-95% we have been moving ahead at much greater speed in the background in other locations. It’s taken just over 2 years to do Samui but thats because we had to learn everything from scratch. Right now…

• 6000 Dogs will be sterilised in October Alone

• We have have 8 partners working across 10 locations

• By the end of the year we will have sterilised well over 40,000 dogs

• While it took 2.5 years to do 3800 dogs in Koh Samui we now do that many dogs every 19 days around South East Asia

I cannot even begin to explain how hard this is logistically, how much it costs and how many people are involved (100s). Having seen the difference it makes here locally I won’t rest until this is happening all over the world even if it does take my entire lifetime.

What Every Single Operation Means

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I used to be an alcoholic and suffer from depression. Back In those days I could feel very worthless and life had little meaning.

Finding the dogs changed everything. I now wake up every morning and while looking in the mirror ask myself the question “if you died tomorrow is this what you want to be doing” and the answer is always overwhelmingly a yes. Nothing is more important than helping these dogs.

I remember clearly the feeling of fear heading out in that jeep wondering what on earth I was doing and how it seemed impossible to fix an entire island. But here we are. Koh Samui is done.

I now have the same fear about being able to fix all of Thailand or changing South East Asia as whole. At the back of my head I’m terrified that I have repeatedly said we would do this across the entire world. It seems absolutely impossible as a target but so did fixing a small island not so long ago.

Sometimes the numbers are easy to gloss over and comprehend their scale. I like to think of Tina when I’m looking at the spreadsheets and big numbers. In my mind its not just 6000 dogs but rather 6000 Tina’s we are funding to sterilise every month. That makes it very real in terms of grasping the enormity of it all.

None of this would be possible without people supporting online or on the ground with the dogs. All I have to do now is keep the momentum going and find ways to scale even faster.

From all the suffering dogs, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Big Love

Niall

P.S You can always support by either donating here or just subscribing to this newsletter.