Dog and Cat Rescue Koh Samui

K OH SAMUI - A PARADISE?.
Yes, but not for dogs or cats! Koh Samui is a tropical island in the South of Thailand, approx 25 km across, with many beautiful beaches, thousands of coconut palms, 25,000 inhabitants and several hundred bungalow resorts and hotels. There are also hundreds of stray or soi dogs ('soi' in Thai means street) begging for food. Most of the soi dogs live in small packs and remain within their territory. This territory is defended by the whole pack and it is very hard for new dogs to join a pack. You can find our homepage under the name www.soidogs.org also.
Until April 1999, there was no vet on the island and medical treatment for animals was impossible. Countless sick or injured dogs and cats died wretchedly and were completely ignored as they lay by the roadside. Even small bite wounds can prove lethal because, in the tropics, flies deposit their eggs in the cuts with the resulting maggots eating their way deeper and deeper into the animal. All it takes is a thorough cleansing and some powder and even large injuries infected with hundreds of maggots can heal quickly.

D ogs have puppies twice a year. Mongrels are particularly fecund and litters with ten puppies are not uncommon. If only five out of ten puppies survive, that 10,000 living pups per year from 1,000 bitches. Before we started in April 1999, in an effort to curtail the number of soi dogs, the government carried out mass poisonings and the problem was solved for a time. For the tourists who had to witness this, their holidays were ruined. Even dogs with owners had two litters a year and the Thai people, not knowing how to deal with puppies, took them to the temple. There, the dogs were fed by the monks with some rice and other leftovers but, if there were too many, the government also poisoned these dogs. As the majority of the Thai population is very poor, and the only vet at that time was on the mainland, travelling there with a dog was not feasible. The average salary is about 5 Euro a day; the price for a castration is about 30 Euro.
When we started helping the dogs on Koh Samui, there wasn't much of a cat problem as dogs eat cats (sad but true). As our work with the dogs progressed and their numbers fell, and the cat population grew. As a result, we had to address the cat problem so we started to neuter and look after the cats on the Island and this work continues still.

ABOUT SAMUI DOG AND CAT FOUNDATION