Helping Dogs in Thailand

♥️ Given that sometimes, people reading these posts have not lived in Thailand, I thought it was worth describing what it’s like for a big majority of street dogs. Just to help explain 🙏

🐕 Because spay/neuter is still fairly new as an initiative in Thailand (it’s become popular only in the last decade or so; thanks to non-profit groups like Hand to Paw promoting the benefits and offering it free of charge), many dogs were and still are being birthed unwanted. There are an estimated 70,000 roaming dogs in Chiang Mai province (where we are). When they come into this world unwanted (sometimes a street dog has gone inside someone’s yard or under their house to birth their entire litter), people who didn’t choose to have them around are confronted with sometimes 10 new dogs in their area following just one birth. When any of the females go into heat, the pack fight at all hours of the day and night. The villagers may get annoyed and shoo the dogs away, shoot them with pellet guns so they don’t stick around asking for food, poison and kill the dogs because they’re seen as pests, take the dogs and abandon them in another area, etc.

🐾 Dogs who are born on the streets or end up dumped on the streets will walk great lengths to try and find food. Sometimes, kind villagers will leave leftover food outside for them to eat and the dog will walk to and from various food sources to survive. It is absolutely heartbreaking to me that so many street dogs get nothing more than a bit to eat and sometimes, a space out of the elements to stay safe from the sun and the rain. They all deserve so much more protection. But on the flip side, I think that Thailand is one of the kindest countries who openly lets street dogs live outside of 7/11 stores, on parking lots, in temples, and many of the dogs will survive by getting fed by kind and decent people. This is such a blessing.

👣 A great deal of people in areas around us live slightly above the poverty line. Someone told me today that her daughter used to go to public school up the road from where they live in Chiang Mai. The mom befriended one of the teachers who told her that the public school required photos of the school children’s home and bed. She wrote: “some entire families are living in a hut in one room on a mattress that is worse than anything I’d give my dogs. The kids have not eaten when they get to school and the school meal is all they eat. The school provides a toothbrush tied to a string and that time at school might be the only time that they brush their teeth.” So when a family who is barely surviving themselves, offers a bowl of rice and bits of fish to the street dog suffering outside of its gate… I can’t help but be moved by their kindness.

🐶 With 70,000 dogs considered street/roaming dogs just in our province alone… we have to look at the bigger picture. Creating a shelter and taking the dogs in would realistically only work for a few hundred dogs until the shelter was overwhelmed and funds were drained. Instead, what we strive to do is to offer mass spay efforts, and to offer it free of charge and through mobile spay days. We have a team of 6 vets who, 3-4 weekends a month, will sterilize 40-60 animals a day, in various regions. In the last 8 years, we have surpassed 15,000 spays. We need to keep going though! Every litter that is born on the street is a series of catastrophes waiting to happen. Each female dog we spay helps increase her own chances of survival plus insures that hundreds more dogs aren’t born just to suffer.

👩‍⚕️ We also offer temporary medical care to these street dogs. When people in the community flag up that a dog needs help, we come and assess and provide medications and treatment to the dog in its own environment or, for more severe cases, we take the dog to the clinic, returning the dog afterwards to the only place it knows as “home”. Treating dogs where they live allows for the dogs to be less stressed as they recover, and since we do much of the wound care ourselves, we save on costs!

☀️ Mass vaccinations of these street dogs (who often remain unprotected unless we intervene) is also a huge priority. With so many dogs getting into contact with other street dogs, one Distemper or Parvo case can wipe out a whole neighborhood of dogs. I get so stressed to know that it continues to happen, even today.

⭐️ We are grateful to the kind people in Thailand who offer food and a bit of protection for the dogs. We then serve to double up the support by coming in and spaying, vaccinating, and offering help for medical emergencies.

🥰 If you want to help us make a difference, donations are the best way to show your support! You can reach us at paypal.me/forThailandanimals or WISE email address: HandtoPawThailand@gmail.com