Animal Welfare Thailand Project #32600

Help Suffering Animals Get Medical Treatment

by Lanta Animal Welfare

Project Report | Nov 24, 2021
Fall Rescue Stories

By Perley-Ann Friedman | Global Giving Project Manager

Monica and Monty, rescued mum and puppy

Lanta Animal Welfare is busy as always providing rescue and medical procedures to animals in need.

Slowly Thailand is operning up to tourists so the island is working hard to get things back to normal after 18 months of restrictions and lockdowns. Our rescue and sterilization activities are finding animals that have been hidden and neglected during the pandemic. We are also continuing to hold mobile sterilization clinics at different locations every month. Your support is helping to make this all possible.

For this report I'm going to share a few rescue stories, so you can understand the lives we are impacting and the suffering we are relieving with our efforts

Monica and Monty's Story

Monica and Monty are our newest mum and pup. The pair were rescued a few weeks ago and it was just in time. They were in a perilous situation.

Monica had a very deep, deep wound on her front right leg. The leg was caught in a snare, and it had cut all the way down to the tendon. As she was being rescued from this trap, she was struggling desperately to protect little Monty. We estimated that Monty was 10 weeks old when we rescued the pair of them.

At first LAW’s veterinary team thought they would be able to save Monty’s leg. However, Monty's injury was extremely severe, more than first thought. The snare had cut right through the tendon and to the bone. Despite the best efforts of our veterinary team, the leg could not be saved. She had to undergo amputation.

This has not altered Monty’s maternal instincts. She remains fiercely protective of little Monty and it’s clear her love for her puppy is enormous.

Fortunately, both are now safe and well, and getting the care and treatment they need. These are difficult and scary times for the two of them, in an unfamiliar environment and not used to human interaction. But our trained medical team will be giving them all they need, and more love and compassion than they ever imagined.

Aoun's Rescue Story

We see so much suffering at Lanta Animal Welfare, but it’s always especially sad to see young animals in pain. Animals like the darling kitty we called Aoun. It's actually an Arabic name, meaning help and charity. She is just 10 months old but had an extremely nasty maggot wound on her head when we found her.

It must have been so painful for this poor little girl. And that wasn't her only problem. Aoun has also suffered damage to her vestibular system. This affects her balance and co-ordination, and causes her head to often tilt to one side. The good news is all of her ailments can be cured, but the treatment will take time.

We will continue to care for this darling cat until she's healthy, and then she will be put up for adoption in a loving home.

Narak's Rescue Story

Narak is such a cutie. And so he should be, because that’s exactly what his name means – cute. Although he looks sweet and cuddly, and of course he is, he is actually quite poorly.

Narak, who is only 14 weeks old, is suffering from feline scabies (Notoedric Mange), a very, very unpleasant skin condition. It is a rare and highly contagious condition, is readily transmitted between cats by contact, and causes severe itching.

Because of its contagious nature, Narak is in our kitty hospital isolation unit. It is not the happiest environment for a playful, inquisitive kitten, but it’s for his own good. Hopefully he won’t be in there for too long and will soon be up for adoption.

Pump's Rescue Story

Pump was admitted to Lanta Animal Welfare this week with a truly horrific maggot wound. It looks as though Pump had probably been in a fight with another dog and had sustained a serious eye injury. But with the wound left untreated, infection had set in and the condition was truly appalling when we found him.

Maggots had gotten in to the infected area and had begun to feast on Pump’s flesh. As a result, we had to remove his left eye. It’s hard to imagine the pain the poor boy was in. The agony must have been virtually unbearable.

Pump is now in recovery. He has a glint out of his good eye, and a cheeky smile on his face. He really is a very cute boy. Although he is still poorly, Pump should make a full recovery from his injuries.

The end of the year is quickly approaching

We continue our important rescue and sterilization work here on Koh Lanta and the surrounding areas. We always try our best to ensure that all animals are cared for to the best of our abilities, and that no animal is left behind.

Everyone here at Lanta Animal Welfare is grateful for your support. Please feel free to contact me if you’d like information about any of our rescue animals, and check out our Website to see the rescue animals that are available for adoption.

I wish you all a very happy and safe Holiday Season and best wishes for the New Year!

Young Kitty Aoun

Lucky Narak

Sweet Pump

Permalink

Aug 2, 2021
Celebrating the Good this Summer

By Perley-Ann Friedman | Global Giving Project Manager

White as Snow

To change our focus for a few minutes, from the pandemic we are all struggle with, this report will focus on the good things we can celebrate this summer at Lanta Animal Welfare. The first celebration of the summer was Junie Kovac’s birthday. Our founder turned 60 and is still going strong. We also had a good number of rescue animals recover from their ordeals and I will share some stories with you.

I hope you find this report uplifting and positive.

Junie Kovac’s Special Birthday

The beginning of the summer was a special day for a very special person. Seventeen years ago, a remarkable woman named Junie Kovacs turned her back on her comfortable lifestyle in Norway, moved to Koh Lanta, Thailand, and set up Lanta Animal Welfare. Her mission was to end the suffering of street animals in southern Thailand, and she has worked tirelessly to do that ever since.

Junie is utterly selfless. She never thinks of herself. The rescue animals are the centre of her world.

We made the attached video to mark the occasion with a little look back through the Lanta Animal Welfare archives.

Snow’s Rescue Story

You would have a heart as cold as ice not to feel sorry for Snow. This poor little fella had a nasty injury when we found her. Our veterinary team suspects he was bitten by a scorpion or a centipede. Infection then set in, and ravaged his small body. We can only imagine the pain he must have been feeling. Your support of our project means cats like Snow can be treated and healed.

I’m pleased to tell you that Snow is well on the road to recovery and we are now looking for his forever home.

Agnes’ Rescue Story

Agnes is gorgeous! At just five months old, she is a proper little cutie. And that’s truly remarkable when you consider her recent circumstances.

When Lanta Animal Welfare rescued Agnes, she was locked in a tiny cage, put there as she was homeless and simply on the lookout for food. The conditions in which she was being held were little short of horrific. She could barely move in what was effectively her little prison. She had terrible mange, a legacy of her confinement in the cage.

Poor Agnes needed a lengthy course of treatment which began the day we rescued her.

I’m very happy to tell you that Agnes is at the end of her recovery and can now have the future she deserves with a loving family.

Bravo’s Rescue Story

Little Bravo had nothing to cheer about when we rescued him. He had a terribly infected wound on his back. Like hundreds of thousands of street dogs, Bravo had been left to suffer alone. His injury was infested with maggots that fed on the infection and had started to feast on his flesh.

Fortunately, for Bravo, we caught his condition in time. He is still in our care and healing nicely. Your support makes such a difference to the lives of the street animals, and for that we all say ‘Bravo’.

Taro’s Rescue Story

Unceremoniously dumped in a cardboard box, what could Taro possibly have done to deserve such a fate? Who would treat an innocent animal in such a shameful way?

We will never know, but sadly he is just the latest in an increasingly long line of animals being abandoned at the doors of Lanta Animal Welfare. Our staff found Taro early one morning last week when they arrived to work. He was terrified and shaking. His only defence from the driving rain was that flimsy cardboard box.

We are now looking after Taro until we can find him a new home, one in which he will be loved and cherished. The home he deserves.

As Summer Begins to Wind Down

Even though the summer is almost over, we continue our important rescue and sterilization work here on Koh Lanta and the surrounding areas. While the stories included in this report have happy endings, we have animals that sadly don’t make it. We always try our best to ensure that all animals are cared for to the best of our abilities and that no animal is left behind.

Everyone here at Lanta Animal Welfare is grateful for your support. Please feel free to contact me if you’d like information about any of our rescue animals, and do go to our Website to see the rescue animals that are available for adoption.

Thanks again and enjoy the rest of your summer!

Agnes is a cutie

Three cheers for Bravo

Little Taro

Links:

Celebrating Our Founder's 60th Birthday

Permalink

Apr 12, 2021
We closed to visitors just over a year ago

By Dr. Perley-Ann Friedman | Global Giving Project Manager

Did Fatty eat too much chocolate over Easter?

A little over a year ago, Lanta Animal Welfare was forced to close its doors because of Covid-19. Those doors remain shut. Please watch the attached video. It contains a personal message from our founder, Junie Kovacs.

Lanta Animal Welfare closed its doors to visitors back in March 2020 due to Covid-19, and those doors remain closed today. While this doesn't impact our ability to rescue and care for animals in distress, nor our sterilization initiatives, it does mean we had to reorganize ourselves. This reorganization resulted in some major changes.

Filling the gap of no volunteers

When we closed our doors, Thailand also closed its border. It's one thing to not allow tourists to enter the country, but this also prevented volunteers from arriving. We operate our centre with a small management and supervisory staff of five to oversee upwards of 25 volunteers. These people come to us from all over the planet to help us with animal care, cleaning, socialization and other activities. When the borders closed, our volunteers were encouraged by their home countries to return. We had a mass exodus of volunteers.

We reached out to the local community for help. We needed people to come to help us each day with the animals, and we needed people to foster them. We tried to foster out as many as possible to reduce the workload each day. This worked well but, over time, with so many animals abandoned and needing our medical services, we couldn't reduce the animals enough.

Our management staff are now doing the volunteer work packages, including our Founder, our General Manager and our communications and adoption managers. Even I am helping with the cat work packages each week. We all decided at the onset of the pandemic that no animal will go without, and we've worked hard to ensure this continues.

We are all looking forward to the day when volunteers from around the world will once again arrive at our door, but until that day comes, we're all focused on the animals. We know we’ll be able to get there and that animal care has not been compromised by the pandemic.

No visitors means no on-site donations

When we first heard that we had to close our doors and that no tourists would be allowed into Thailand we were very afraid. During the winter high tourist season in Thailand, tens of thousands of visitors come visit our centre, take a tour, buy our Swag, adopt our rescue animals, and leave a donation. This was all negated back in March 2020.

Instead of panicking, and stressing ourselves out, we looked at it as an opportunity to explore new revenue streams, new ways to adopt animals, and how we could sell our Swag online. We all worked together to figure this out and while we haven't been able to bring in the donations we used to from our visitors, we are, with some success, finding new ways to promote Lanta Animal Welfare.

We are sending out more newsletters to our mailing list encouraging online donations. These newsletters are full of stories of our animal rescues to keep our supporters up to date with the activities at our centre. We're posting a wider variety of stories on our social media accounts, and have started using video a lot more in our posts. We're also working hard to build our database so we can reach more animal lovers with our stories.

The results of our new outreach initiatives have been very good and we are pleased that our supporters have grown substantially this past year. We all feel that this situation has been a wake-up call. Before we relied too much on our visitors for donations. Now we know that we always need alternatives in place in case something changes. We are now better prepared for the future as change is inevitable.

Thai National staff in both the clinic and in the centre

A positive result of the border closures is that we've been able to hire Thai nationals in key positions. Previously we tried to recruit Thais, but it was difficult as we are not able to offer a good salary, especially for vets and vet nurses. As a charity we can't afford the salaries that vets in private clinics receive, even upon graduation. The same with vet nurses. As well, Koh Lanta is a very remote island so many Thais don't want to live here. Many Thai vets, vet nurses, and people interested in animal care looked for work in other countries. Now they are looking within Thailand.

This has been a tremendous bonus for us, especially in our clinic. The new Thai staff can communicate more easily with the locals to understand how the animal got injured. It has also helped our mobile clinics as most are in remote areas where English is not spoken.

We have seen the positive impact of our new staff members as we're better able to provide our rescue services to more animals in very remote areas.

- - -

Junie Kovacs, our Founder, and I want to thank you all so very much for supporting this project on GlobalGiving. It allows us to do our important animal rescue and sterilization work here in southern Thailand. Your donation has saved countless lives, prevented so much suffering, and helped us grow our rescue footprint in areas that had never had veterinary care. Without such care the locals were unable to help suffering animals and they had no humane way to control the animal overpopulation.

Please stay safe for a bit longer, there is light at the end of this long tunnel.

Fitz on the road to recovery from being poisoned

Bitsy recovering from a tick borne skin disease

Fawn was rescued from starvation

Links:

Message from Junie Kovacs, March 2021

Permalink

‹ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ›

About Project Reports

Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.

If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.