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In January 2023, as the founder of Freddies Friends Foundation, I went to Thailand for six weeks to visit the animal rescue shelters and sanctuaries we have supported since our launch and a further four.
Combined the dog shelters housed over 3200 rescued street dogs and in addition, most of them carried out daily feeds for local street dogs and puppies which without this daily feeding, would simply starve.
There are varying guesstimates of the number of street dogs in Thailand ranging from 750,000 to over 2,000, 000 and frankly, having been there twice, it is impossible to be accurate as literally, they are everywhere but mostly hidden on scrublands, woodlands, forests and jungles making it impossible to get accurate counts. It is mostly dogs that have been rescued from a bad situation or brought to the attention of a local rescue by someone from the community that a dog is brought in to be healed and if it is deemed unsafe to return a dog to the area it was rescued from, it will get to live out its life in a shelter. The best outcome is for adoption but of course, it is most often the puppies that will get adopted.
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There are a lot of dog rescue organisations many run by expats who, a bit like myself, went to south east Asia on holiday and were shocked to see so many dogs and cats living on the streets and were sufficiently moved to make Thailand their home and dedicate the rest of their lives to animal rescue.
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In respect of Thai people it is very difficult for them to create a Foundation, (registered charity), as the governments regulations set such a high bar for a Thai person to jump over they simply don't create a foundation and instead, work with very limited funds on land that is their or was gifted to them.
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I visited three such shelters firstly to check the welfare of the dogs and cats came first and it was apparent on every occasion the love and devotion for the dogs and cats was well above any self regard for any kind of comfortable lifestyle. Yes, it is true, as in all countries, there are scam organisations and it was part of my fact finding to look out for such organisations and I am happy to say I did not come across any inappropriate activity. In fact, the lifetime devotion of the Thai people running rescue shelters was very humbling!
I came back with four Thai rescue shelter projects. Two are Thai run and the goal is to improve the facilities for the dog pens. To make them safer from monsoon flooding and snakes and easier for the volunteers and staff to keep clean.
The other one is in Krabi, on the edge of a jungle. It is a camp run by husband and wife Paul and Elena who have given up everything in their Western life to take care, every day, of between 70 - 80 dogs who frankly would otherwise be killed by locals. Their camp suffers from flooding and the shelters are made from whatever materials they can get their hands on for free. Our goal is to improve boundary fences and camp shelters to make the camp safer for the dogs who have been the victims of snake bites.
Finally, the other shelter is a very well established and very well run shelter called Dog Rescue Thailand. The goal here is to improve facilities for visitors to improve local awareness, education and collaboration for the street dogs in their community with a long term goal to have more dogs sterilised and taken care of.
You can learn more about these projects and the rescue shelters we support in Cornwall on our Freddies Friends Foundation pages on Instagram and Facebook.