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Soi Dog/Happy Doggo s/n campaign aims to fix every street dog in Asia

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Soi Dog Thailand dogs.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Big target,  but Soi Dog Foundation has history of success & Happy Doggo has ambition

KOH SAMUI & PHUKET,  Thailand––“Niall Harbison’s Happy Doggo and John Dalley’s Soi Dog Foundation together are launching a mass spay/neuter campaign aimed at ending the suffering of homeless animals across Asia,”  Soi Dog Foundation marketing and press officer Amy Bryant emailed to ANIMALS 24-7 on February 8,  2024.

“Our joint project will see 90-100 street dogs neutered and vaccinated a day.  That is 2,000 a month and over 20,000 a year,”  promised Bryant.

“Yeah,  right,”  said ANIMALS 24-7,  jaded by seeing grandiose claims in appeals and media releases a zillion times a day for donkey’s years,  most of which are never even close to fulfilled.

Niall Harbison and John Dalley.

Niall Harbison and John Dalley.
(Facebook photo)

Soi Dog Foundation was first to reach a million animals fixed

But this media release came from the Soi Dog Foundation,  the first animal charity in the world to reach a million spay/neuter surgeries actually performed by staff surgeons,  working throughout Thailand.

(See Soi Dog celebrates a million animals fixed in 18 years; lesson for U.S.)

            Realizing that,  ANIMALS 24-7 pulled the communication out of our electronic “junk” file and gave it a closer look.

“The project launched into action in the southern province of Surat Thani on January 30,  2024,”  Bryant said.  “On the first day,  47 dogs underwent spay/neuter surgery and received life-saving vaccinations against diseases including rabies,  distemper,  and parvovirus.

Soi Dog Thailand dogs.

(Beth Clifton collage)

“International notoriety”?!

“Carrying this momentum forward,”  Bryant continued,  “are two fully equipped mobile clinic teams who will move strategically around the province,  humanely capturing,  then neutering and vaccinating street dogs before returning them safely to their territories.”

Said Niall Harbison in a manufactured media release quote,  “There are somewhere between eight and 15 million street dogs in Thailand.  Mass sterilization really is the only way to fix this once and for all.”

Resumed Bryant,  “Based on the nearby island of Koh Samui, Niall has gained international notoriety for his work feeding,  sterilizing and treating street dogs,  which he documents online.

“Happy Doggo is a registered United Kingdom charity,  founded in 2023.”

Gill and John Dalley

Gillian & John Dalley.
(Facebook photo)

Soi Dog Foundation more-or-less arrived with tsunami

Soi Dog Foundation is also a registered United Kingdom charity.

Founded in Phuket in 2003,  Soi Dog Foundation initially earned international credibility as a leading first responder to the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 26,  2004.

The tsunami killed at least 225,000 people in Indonesia,  Sri Lanka,  India,  and Thailand,  including Soi Dog Foundation cofounder Leone Cosens.

That left recent British retirees to Phuket and Soi Dog Foundation volunteers John and Gillian Dalley in charge––and Gillian had just lost both of her legs from the knees down to a nasty infection acquired while rescuing a dog from a muddy swamp.

John and Gillian Dalley together built the Soi Dog Foundation into one of the most accomplished animal charities in Asia,  leading successful campaigns against rabies and the dog meat industry in Vietnam,  Laos,  and Cambodia,  as well as in Thailand.

Notorious BIG rapper as veterinarian.

Notorious spay/neuter surgeon.
(Beth Clifton collage)

Notorious B.I.G.?

But Gillian Dalley died of cancer on February 13,  2017.  John Dalley recently returned to the United Kingdom for health reasons.

And Vocabulary.com defines “notoriety” as “fame you get from doing something bad or being part of a misfortune or scandal.”

It is not a word often seen in media releases.

Contacted by email,  John Dalley explained,  “Note this story relates to a project in Surat Thani province.  Last month the Soi Dog Foundation sterilized over 24,000 dogs and cats across Thailand.  The target is 260,000 this year.  I believe this is the largest neuter/return program anywhere in the world,”  and it is in fact already well underway,  not just a promised start-up.

Niall Harbison founder Happy Doggo.

Niall Harbison,  founder of Happy Doggo.
(Facebook photo)

Who is Niall Harbison?

That left another question,  though:  who is Niall Harbison?

Has he actually accomplished something beyond “international notoriety,”  and can he continue the momentum of “the largest neuter/return program anywhere in the world”?

“Originally from Cookstown,  County Tyrone, Harbison moved to Dublin in the late 1990s to train as a chef at Cathal Brugha catering college,”  wrote Barbara McCarthy for the Irish Times on July 8,  2022.

“A ski season cheffing in the French Alps led to jobs on yachts along the French Riviera.  As Harbison’s experience grew,  yachts got bigger,  and via ‘good fortune,’  he got a private cheffing job on the mega-yacht of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.”

Eventually Harbison founded,  build,  and sold the social media-based companies Simply Zesty and Lovin’ Dublin.

Niall Harbison founder Happy Doggo.

Niall Harbison.  (Facebook photo)

“Was in a dark place”

“He was in a ‘dark place’ in December 2018,”  updated Genevieve Fox for The Guardian on August 27,  2023.

“One day the rain and the depression got too much,  and so,  on a whim,  aged 39,  he left for Thailand,  first to travel with his girlfriend at the time,  and then to make a ‘forever’ home on Koh Samui,”  an island on the east coast of the Thai southern peninsular,  more or less opposite to Phuket,  a city on the west side.

Harbison lost the girlfriend in December 2020,  but kept his dog Snoop,  adopted from the Irish SPCA in 2012.

“He went on a ‘particularly ferocious’ bender,”  recounted Fox,  “which he only now recognizes was part of a mental breakdown.  On New Year’s Eve 2020, when Harbison was ‘completely unable to function,’  a friend came and got Snoop and Harbison admitted himself to hospital.

“After leaving hospital in January 2021,”  Fox wrote,  “Harbison spent the next year ‘just walking and trying to live and figuring out how to do something meaningful.”

Soi Dog Thailand dogs.

(Beth Clifton collage)

“Who’s going to feed them tomorrow?”

One day Harbison “stopped and fed some dogs in the jungle.  But then I realized,”  Harbison told Fox,  “Who’s going to feed them tomorrow?”

“Working with local vets,”  Fox said,  Harbison “began funding the sterilization of the dogs to curtail the stray population,  saving them from hardship and suffering, and paying for their vaccinations.”

Now 43,  Harbison founded Happy Doggo in August 2023,  setting a goal for himself of becoming “able to pay for 10,000 dogs a month to be sterilized,”  continued Fox.

“In his first year, he managed 1,200 dogs,”  fundraising on social media,  with “579,000 Instagram followers checking in on the dogs he has treated or saved,”  Fox said.

John Dalley and friend

John Dalley and friend.
(Soi Dog Foundation photo)

Goal is to cut global street dog population in half

“My ultimate goal is to cut the number of street dogs in the world from 500 million to 250 million,”  Harbison told Claire Murrihy of Irish County Magazine two weeks later.

“It’s a huge and ambitious project,”  Harbison conceded,  “but I am determined to do it over the course of my lifetime.”

Partnering with the Soi Dog Foundation makes a good start.

“We share the belief that spaying and neutering is crucial to ending the suffering of stray animals.  Our neuter/return program is one of our largest,”  said publicist Bryant.  “Soi Dog currently operates 18 mobile clinics across Thailand,  tirelessly working toward this mission every day.”

Dog meat in Vietnam.

Rahul Sehgal,  Soi Dog Foundation director of international advocacy.
(Soi Dog Foundation photo)

Rahul Sehgal

Soi Dog Foundation also happens to have on staff Rahul Sehgal,  who is among the few people in the world––besides John Dalley––who has already accomplished anything comparable to the mission Harbison projects for himself.

Now the Soi Dog Foundation director of international advocacy,  Rahul Sehgal “leads our team focusing on ending the dog meat trade in Asia,  currently focusing on Vietnam and the Philippines,”  John Dalley told ANIMALS 24-7.

“He is not involved in our neuter/return program,”  Dalley stipulated.

But Rahul Sehgal is there.

A 1998 graduate from Gujurat University,  with a degree in sociology,  Sehgal in 2000 started the Animal Help Foundation in Ahmedabad,  setting up a high-volume street dog sterilization project that in 2006,  as one of the first such projects in India to use gas anesthesia and the “keyhole” surgery technique long practiced in the U.S.,  spayed or neutered 45,000 dogs in ten months.

Rahul Sehgal with dogs.

Rahul Sehgal.  (Facebook photo)

Started in Bhutan on Valentine’s Day 2009

Running afoul of local politics in Ahmedabad,  essentially for being too successful at too young an age,  without strong political connections,  Sehgal took a job directing street dog sterilization projects for the Humane Society of the U.S. subsidiary Humane Society International,  first in Bhutan and later in Nepal and the Philippines.

The Bhutan project began on Valentine’s Day 2009,  using Indian veterinarians to train a Bhutanese team who sterilized more than 2,800 dogs in their first four months and just kept going.

Beth and Merritt

Beth & Merritt Clifton

Blogged Kitty Block on October 24,  2023,  as president of Humane Society International before a February 2018 promotion to the presidency of the Humane Society of the U.S. itself,  “Today, more than 153,000 dogs in Bhutan have been vaccinated and sterilized and more than 31,000 pets have been registered and micro-chipped.  Estimates suggest that the program has achieved nearly 100% sterilization of all street dogs in the country.

“Given this remarkable outcome,”  Block said,  “we are celebrating this successful 14-year partnership with the Royal Government of Bhutan,  which now runs the program independently.”

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The post Soi Dog/Happy Doggo s/n campaign aims to fix every street dog in Asia appeared first on Animals 24-7.


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