Dog rescue volunteering holiday, Thailand

Planet

The project team treats over 15,000 sick and injured animals each year.
The projects animal rescue officers travel the island of Phuket and nearby province of Phang Nga to respond to animal emergencies and reports of stray dogs or cats requiring hospital treatment. The office team handle between 1,200 and 1,600 calls each month and many alerts demand immediate assistance from our animal rescue officers.

Once the rescued animals have arrived at the sanctuary hospital, they are visually assessed by a vet and quickly monitored for contagious diseases before being admitted. The volunteer team then help to care for the dogs.

The Asian dog meat trade is one of the biggest animal welfare concerns in the world. The project is a driving force behind conversations with the leaders who have the power to make change and volunteers support will help take steps to end this cruel and inhumane practice.

The project actively helps to reduce plastic bottle waste by providing drinking water which visitors can drink and refill their reusable bottles from.

Rather than each volunteer taking taxis to the project a local group vehicle is provided to transport volunteers from their accommodation to the dog rescue centre, this helps to reduce road traffic and pollution in the area.

People

Thailand is home to millions of stray dogs and cats so the projects spay and neuter project is incredibly important for the local communtities.

The project was set up to help improve the welfare of stray animals in Thailand by addressing the main source of the problem which is the overpopulation of dogs and cats. It is widely agreed that the only ethical and most effective way of managing a stray dog population is through a programme of mass spay and neuter. The project team reached the milestone of three-quarters-of-a-million animals reached by the programme and has now neutered and vaccinated almost 900,000 dogs and cats since it began in 2003, now reaching more than 17,000 new animals every month. Procedures are carried out by the local vet in Phuket, Bangkok and in their 13 mobile clinics.

As well as neuturing the team help in vital vaccinations for dogs which helps to minimise the spread of potentially life-threatening diseases such as rabies. The ultimate goal of vaccination is to eliminate rabies in Thailand which is an incredible campaign for change. Rabies is harmless to local communities so the vital work vaccinating the stray dog population directly helps the local community to be more safe.

The project employs, trains and empowers many local members of the local community who are employed at the project. The project trains new thai vets and vets from local others countries too.