I know I’m not the first one feeling the way I feel about animal rescuing, and I certainly won’t be the last one.
It’s tough. Really tough. And it never ends. No matter how many individuals try to help the animals, without a collective effort, very little is likely to change. I’m not going to give up now, but I’m not going to do this forever. I’m going to try my best for the animals in my neighbourhood, but I don’t intend to stay here forever. There’s too little community, too much disconnection, too much indifference, and it’s just too painful to witness.
Last Sunday, I carried a puppy with a ruptured eye for maybe 1 kilometre. I was in tears, the pup was bleeding, many people saw us, nobody offered any kind of help or even expressed concern.
He is a big puppy, and it was hot. I had to stop multiple times to rest my arms. He’s 10 months old, and I’ve known him since he was a tiny baby. I actually wanted to get his mother (Floppy Ear) aborted and sterilised when she was pregnant with him and his siblings, but I was too late. Some might find it cruel, but isn’t it more cruel to let puppies come to life and just let them fend for themselves on the street? Most street puppies are malnourished and infested with parasites, when they don’t end up dead on the road.
These puppies actually seem to have people, but they are left to roam around freely, and they’re exposed to all kinds of dangers. I haven’t seen the black puppy and the mother for weeks now. They might be dead. They also could have been sent to live somewhere else. I think the people care about the dogs. They got them collars, they even got one with a flashing light for the mother at some point. They feed them, most likely a lot of rice, but I don’t think they take them to the vet’s, probably because they can’t afford it. At some point, the mother had ticks, so I started to give her antiparasite meds. I also gave some to the pups and I give them proper dog food every time I see them. I absolutely wanted to get the mother sterilised before she got pregnant again, and when she was in heat at the end of March, I contacted Soi Dog so they could sterilise her asap. They came quickly and picked up the pups too. A few days later, they all had tattooed ears, meaning they had been sterilised.
It’s a good thing because they can’t produce more puppies, but it doesn’t keep them from the dangers of living on the street. There are so many dogs in that area and they don’t all like each other.
I really want to get as many stray animals as possible sterilised while I’m here to avoid unnecessary suffering.
I drove the puppy up to Soi Dog Foundation, as it was early in the morning and my vet wasn’t open yet. Plus, I trust them to do a good job with this kind of injury. They see so many. I was also thinking it would probably be a huge vet bill, and I wasn’t sure I could afford it, as I already had two animals in the hospital. Plus, the street might be way too dangerous for him now, and they can keep him at the shelter if they remove his eye. I haven’t received an update yet, despite asking for it twice, but I got two phone calls regarding Shorty: he was amputated and they’re keeping him at the shelter. That was a relief!
Softie was neutered on Monday, and everything went well. He couldn’t go out on a walk for a couple of days, but I took him out again on Thursday. He recovered well and got out of the hospital on Friday (yesterday). I posted so many ads online in animal groups to try to find someone to adopt him. I asked everyone I met in the vet’s waiting room if they wanted to adopt him. They all found him so cute and adorable, because he is, but nobody actually offered to adopt him. I saw that many people shared my ads, without success.
I was worried about him the whole week. He loves people so much and he would make such a perfect companion. If Happy and Alien weren’t so territorial, I would have fostered him, but he’s scared of them, because they growl at him. I had to let him go back to the village streets yesterday. He knew where he was and he just took off almost as soon as he got off the car. I got him a tag that says “adopt me” with my phone number, and I wanted to get him a collar, but I was so exhausted yesterday that I forgot. I had to deal with Happy’s blood test results that weren’t great and spent hours at the animal hospital, which drained me. I simply forgot my plan for Softie if he went back to the street. I should see him again soon and will collar him up.
I hope he stays safe. He’s such a special dog. I hate that nobody stepped up. I’ll keep advertising for him and who knows, maybe someone will see the ad one day and think they want to give him a chance.
I’m happy that he got vaccinated, dewormed, neutered and fed regularly for almost 2 weeks. But I’m so upset he had to go back to the street. I guess it’s easier to return them to the street when you don’t try to connect with them so much.
The hospital bill for him came up to 10,879 baht, which is about £244. Less than I expected for 11 nights at the hospital including sterilisation.
I went to the hospital every day this week again. I decided to cancel a class on Tuesday so I could have a break long enough to go to the hospital. Visiting hours are between 11am and 5pm, and I had my first class at 10am and my last one at 6pm.
I visited Garfield every day of course. He’s such a cuddler! We have our little ritual. I come in, I sit on the floor in his room and he comes to me, nose bumps me, then climbs on me for a cuddle. The vet found a wound on his leg a few days ago. We couldn’t see it at first because of the hair, but he got bitten pretty badly. So he’s been treated for that too. I got him a scratcher yesterday so he has something to do when he’s all alone. When he doesn’t have to wear a flower around his neck anymore, I will get him a couple of toys. He still hasn’t been neutered because his blood tests were not the best. And as he can’t go back to the street, there’s no hurry. I do hope I’ll find a home for him though, either as an only cat, or with other FeLV+ cats.
I’ve posted quite a few pics of him on Instagram.
The fundraiser stalled for a few days. It made me a bit upset. I don’t really know how to do that, I’ve never done it before, and I don’t really know what to expect. Then I received a huge donation, and I felt so much gratitude. It made me cry so much. I do a lot of that these days.
I’m so grateful for the donations received, but part of me is upset with the people who haven’t donated. I mean people I know pretty well, people I know are not struggling financially. People whose life wouldn’t be affected if they donated £20. I know that the world is not doing so well at the moment, and that there are so many causes to support. Maybe these people donate to other causes, which I hope they do. Or maybe they prefer to keep their money safe in their bank account and spend it all on themselves and their close ones. I’ll never know. I just know how it makes me feel. Among the people who have not donated, there are many for whom I would show up if they needed help. Some for whom I have. But well, that’s life. In the list of donors, I recognise some names from the past. Past students I knew quite well at some point. Others I taught very briefly for exam practice years ago, and haven’t been in touch with since. Some dear friends. People I already thought were great. Many of my students, who are already supporting my livelihood by taking classes with me. My husband’s family. A couple of my husband’s friends. A couple of strangers too.
I don’t want to assume or judge, maybe people I think are doing well are not doing as well as I imagine, and they owe me nothing, but part of me can’t help being disappointed with some people. And another part of me is feeling so much gratitude and appreciation for the people who have made the choice to support me and the animals. I want to hug them all so tight. Hopefully there will be more over time.
Adding Softie’s bill to the previous ones, we’re at 45,430 baht spent, which is about £1,020.
Donations have reached £2,202, which means we still have £1,182 available (52,730 baht), which is actually really good. I’m not sure where I’m at with Garfield, but it’s definitely much much lower than this. He’s been at the hospital for two weeks now, and we’re also going to put a donation box at the hospital for local people to contribute. The vet couldn’t find a box, so I ordered one online today.
Another thing that has brought me down quite a bit is being back on social media. I hate it so much, but it feels I kind of have to be there for this kind of work. But the bloody algorithm is showing me mostly pages of animal rescues, and it is all so upsetting. I can’t open Instagram without crying. So many people trying to help animals seem to be struggling. Most of the pages I see are doing it on a much bigger scale, and they just seem to be running after money all the time. And I got reminded of kill shelters. And that it’s not only in Phuket that people abandon their animals, but everywhere in the world. Today, I saw a post from a rescue organisation trying to help a 4-year-old husky whose owner wanted to euthanise him because they couldn’t take care of the dog anymore. When the vet refused, they said they’d have a friend put a bullet in the dog’s head. Wtf of a world is that? I could just choose to not scroll and just post, but apparently, I’m just as weak as the next person and can’t help scrolling. I do learn some stuff from some rescue organisations though, which I find very useful. But social media is terribly toxic and I wonder if I should keep the IG page. 15k followers on my work account hardly ever brought me anything good, so I’m really wondering. I’m pretty sure no more than 5 people who ended up taking classes with me found me on IG over the 7 years I was on it. But I want to give the animals every little chance to get some help.