Please take a few minutes to read!
Hi everyone, I'm Jenny!
I recently gave up my house and life in the UK to pursue my two biggest passions in life, travelling and working with animals!
There are simply not enough words to describe the love i have for animals. Their innocence along with the unconditional love they have for humans, who are sometimes cruel to them, encourages a huge force within me to do anything i can to make sure they are ok.
The thought of an animal suffering, no matter WHAT animal that is, hurts my heart to the core.
My family friends thing I'm nuts, I’ve trained squirrels in my garden to crawl all over me and take nuts from my hand, I’ve picked up snails that have been trodden in and kept them safe in a tank until their shells have grown back and have rescued 5 injured pigeons that have been attacked by crows.
I really have had the opportunity to connect with them on a deeper level and because of that care deeply.
So why am I asking for your help?….
I’ve spent 6 weeks in Thailand and visited a town called Pattaya south of the capital of Bangkok. I googled sanctuary to see if there were any to visit nearby and came across one in the countryside and decided to pay them a visit.
This beautiful place is called 'Hope for strays foundation'. Som the owner has given up the last 7 years of her life collecting injured and needy dogs off the streets and has spayed, fed and cared for them with a very small team of Thai locals.
When i arrived at this place to a great deal of barks naturally i was intimidated, there were lots of dogs in their pens but also around 10 dogs free and waiting outside at the gate, 4 of which were puppies. As i approached, around 6 of those 10 ran towards me on my bike and I wondered if i was risking being bitten going there, i really didn't know what to expect. A little girl came out of the gate and handed me a phone, a lady called Som introduced herself said she would be there in 5 minutes and to wait by the door.
During that wait i began to interact with the 10 dogs at the door and slowly i realised that non of them were going to bite and that they were just curious. The puppies were huge bundles of love running around playing with each other and the older dogs flopped by my feet on their backs looking for belly rubs.
Som arrived and asked me to follow her into the first pen, i asked her if any of them were dangerous to which she replied no they are all friendly, so i trusted her.
I followed her from one pen, to another pen, slowly meeting around 280 dogs and against my initial judgement of stray dogs being aggressive and feral, not one of them tried to bite or attack me, not one of them growled and almost all of them ran up to me wanting to be stroked.
I felt quite overwhelmed with how wrong i was and how negatively i thought their behaviour might be just because they were strays, it really did sadden me that non of them have ever experienced proper love, yet they still showed affection.
I asked Som a lot of questions about their life at her rescue, first being 'Are the dogs caged continuously?' to which she replied 'no, they come out every day' as she opened the doors of three of the pens where around 25 dogs ran free into the huge open space she has. It was beautiful to watch all of them run up and interact with each other! Som then walked to the end of the enclosure and opened the main gates to the whole place and all 25 dogs ran into the woodland!!!
Not only does she allow them out, she also lets them run free in the woodland surrounding her. I was completely and utterly surprised at how much this woman does to make sure these dogs have a fulfilled and happy life.
Every single one of the dogs stayed near by us as we walked through the trees and after we had finished every single of of them came back to her call, running back into there particular pens with no resistance at all.
These were stray dogs that have had no training at all, coming straight back and obeying commands. You could very clearly see how happy these dogs were, wagging their tails, looking for strokes and belly rubs and always returning home.
She told me theres 280 of them on her site and each of them have their own 'wolf' pack, she has to let particular pens of dogs out with other particular pens so that they don't fight. They rotate it so all of them get to run in the woodland.
On top of the 280 dogs she has in her enclosure, she has 80 living in her home. She simply hasn't got enough space left to house more of them now, she quite literally cares for them in her house. She told me theres nothing she can do right now because the sanctuary doesn't receive enough donations to pay the staff properly, so finishing the pen is impossible.
I asked her how much she needs to raise and with a concerned look she told me 30,000..... which initially i said wow thats a lot! But i then realised, this was in Thai currency of Baht. When i converted this on google, i realised this is actually just £600!!
So i am here to kindly ask for your help!
Please join me in helping Som finish building these doggies their enclosure. They need fans installing, guttering, fencing and more to be able to transfer them from her home to the pen with the rest of the dogs!
If you can spare anything you can, that would be amazing and appreciated more than you know.
Thank you SO much for reading and so much for any help, little or big!
Jenny.