Anja was rescued by the Soi Dog Foundation from the illegal meat trade in Thailand. Anja witnessed the horrors no dog should ever have to witness, and her future was bleak. Without rescue, Anja would have ended up as someone meal.
Anja came to the US from Soi Dog Foundation to partner rescue organization, The Barking Lot, in December 2017. By January, 2018, she had found her loving new home. Not only was she now safe and loved, she also brought comfort and companionship to her new family.
Below are some comments from Anja’s adopter.
“Anja immediately made a difference in our lives. Her presence alone helped with comforting Duchess. Unlike most canines, our wolfdog doesn’t enjoy riding in vehicles. The confinement and transportation causes intense anxiety that’s difficult to manage for long distance driving. Anja to the rescue! She became Duchess’ therapy animal. Anja is perfectly comfortable riding in vehicles with her sister, and her relaxed demeanor also calmed Duchess.”
“Anja is very smart and loving. As a former street dog, she was initially quite skittish and easily spooked, but she has overcome many of her fears and she’s much more comfortable greeting people.”
“Sadly, we lost Duchess in late May, so Anja is now providing therapy to us. The timing of her joining our family was perfect. She has a seriously intense look about her at times, but she can also be silly when she’s excited or wants to play.”
“We know she’s grateful to us and we are most grateful to her as well. We’re so happy that we are able to improve Anja’s quality of life. She gives us so much joy every day!!”
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Tortured at the hands of humans, some dogs rescued from the dog meat trade, have simply lost their ability to trust. While now safe, these dogs are highly unadoptable and risk spending the rest of their lives at a shelter.
Thankfully, Soi Dog Foundation has an amazing partner rescue organization, who specializes in the rehabilitation of feral and terrified dogs. The Devoted Barn, located in Frenchtown, Michigan, has now worked with 30 dogs rescued from the illegal dog meat trade in Thailand.
The lastest survivor of the dog meat trade to travel from Thailand to The Devoted Barn is a dog named Prince. Skinny and frightened, Prince is still terrified of people, despite being rescued over 2 years ago and safe since then. No doubt he remembers the horrors he experienced and is terrified he will once again be tortured.
Using rewards and patience, the volunteers ay the Devoted Barn hope that one day, Prince will learn to trust and be able to be adopted to a loving him. If not, there will always be a place for Prince to live in safety at The Devoted Barn.
Thanks to people like you, dogs like Prince are being given the chance they deserve.
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In Hanoi, Vietnam, authorities recently have announced that the sale of dog meat will be banned from the central districts of the city from 2021.
The director of the Hanoi's Department of Animal Health, Nguyen Ngoc Son, told a local newspaper “Following a direction from the city’s People’s Committee that called on residents to ease off eating dog meat, we are building a plan to gradually phase out the slaughtering and trading of dog meat. By 2021 there will be no dog meat restaurants in the city centre.”
Soi Dog Foundation worked closely with the People’s Committee, who had asked city residents shortly before the announcement was made, to stop eating dog and cat meat. The People's Committe had also urged local district authorities to launch campaigns to warn people about the risks of contracting diseases, including potentially deadly rabies and leptospirosis, from eating dog and cat meat.
The People's Committee also said that the slaughter and sale of dogs and cats for their meat had damaged the image of Hanoi. The city of Hanoi is now home to 1,013 restaurants selling dog and cat meat. The exact number of dogs and cats eaten throughout Vietnam is not known precisely, but is estimated to be around five million animals a year.
Soi Dog Foundation co-founder John Dalley says, “This is wonderful news. We sincerely hope that, step by step, this planned ban will be spread out across the entire city and will be emulated by other cities in Vietnam. There is no place for cruelty in culture. Hanoi is growing into a 21st century city, and practises that belong in the dark ages should be cleared away.”
Soi Dog recognizes that there will need to be a lot of work put in to create the legal framework for banning the dog and cat meat trade, and have offered to help and guide in any way they can. Soi Dog Foundation was instrumental in tackling the organised smugglingJohn Dalley was also a member of the Thai government committee that drafted an anti-cruelty law that came into force in 2014. The law made the eating of dogs and cats in Thailand illegal.
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Soi Dog Foundation, in cooperation with other animal activists and the Royal Thai Police, has launched a nationwide billboard campaign to highlight the punishment that will be faced by those committing acts of animal cruelty or attempting to slaughter dogs or cats for meat.
Thailand is home to many “labour camps”. These are places that house immigrant workers from neighbouring countries, brought in to work on construction projects in Thailand.
Most are from countries where consuming dog or cat meat is not illegal. Many are not aware that it’s illegal in Thailand, or if they are, they think they’ll get away with it.
Well, not anymore. Hundreds of billboards have now been erected in labour camps, local markets, factories, and other places where migrant workers may congregate. The billboards have been produced in the Khmer, Burmese, Laotian and Thai languages, and the message couldn’t be clearer.
These measures can work, but it can only happen with your support. Thank you for fighting to end animal cruelty in Thailand.
A petition launched by the animal activists of South Korea, was recently run, and thanks to the help of Soi Dog supporters like you, the target was reached, ensuring it would be reviewed by government officials. This petition demanded that South Korea’s government take action so that dogs are no longer classified as livestock, and to create laws to ban the consumption of dogs and cats.
The target for this petition was 200,000 signatures, and thanks to the help of Soi Dog’s supporters, currently stands at 214,634.
In recent weeks, Soi Dog Foundation received an urgent request from CARE (Coexistence of Animal Rights on Earth), an animal welfare foundation based in South Korea.
Following a crackdown on the notorious Moran market, where on-site slaughtering of dogs was happening, dog meat butchers were banished from the area. In turn, some of those butchers illegally occupied land owned by the Korea Land & Housing Corporation, claiming that they had facilities on the land prior to it being bought. The group demands that the housing corporation pay them compensation.
To provide backing up to their claim, they built dog enclosures on-site and then proceeded to dump around 200 dogs there. Around 60 dogs have already been rescued but the rest remain and they are in critical condition. The conditions are horrific, and many of the dogs have not survived. Those that still survive are only been given rotting food to eat. The enclosures are filthy and covered in faeces, flies, and insects. Decaying bodies of dead dogs lie everywhere. The survivors are fighting terrible skin problems, with many having lost all their hair whilst some others have tumors. All are severely emaciated.
These innocent dogs are being used to add weight to the claim that the butchers are owed compensation. Soi Dog is providing financial help to fund CARE’s rescue mission as their shelter is already operating at full capacity and unable to cope with all 142 remaining dogs at once.
This horror is a devastating emergency but with your help, we can stop it. Thank you for being the voice of these innocent dogs.
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