Dog and Cat Rescue Samui Foundation Brigitte Gomm 112/35 Moo 6 Bophut/Chaweng Samui 84320 Suratthani Thailand Phone: 00 66 77 413 490 Mobile: 00 66 81 893 94 43 E-Mail: info@samuidog.org Website: www.samuidog.org Facebook: Brigitte Gomm Dear Animal friends December 2016 Thailand is in deep mourning for their beloved king. October 13 marked one of the saddest and most painful days in the history of Thailand: the death of the king. He was not only a monarch, but the longest reigning, most revered and beloved monarch in the world, King Rama IX, King Bhumibol Adulyadej. He has been very committed to street dogs and has always appealed to his people not to buy a breed dog, but to take in street dogs. King Bhumibol has written a book about his beloved dog Tong Daeng. Here, you can find some pictures from the book: http://www.samuidog.org/thekingandhisdog_en.html Info Letter December 2016 - Page 1 of 14
My heartfelt thanks to all the animal friends who supported us in 2016, whether as a volunteer, through donating items, advertising or donations in general. VISITORS AND VOLUNTEERS ARE ALWAYS WELCOME! In recent months, many families with small children had visited our house in Chaweng and have had a lot of fun with our little favourites. The dogs and cats are always totally excited when visitors come. Often they get treats and for this reason, guests are always greeted exuberantly. Info Letter December 2016 - Page 2 of 14
Of course, the dogs in the animal shelter in Ban Taling Nam are very happy about visitors. Volunteers in the shelter are always welcome and they will find endlessly ways to support us. No prior registration is needed. Come and help us - 350 dogs and many cats are waiting for you! We are always looking forward to volunteers who help us a few hours or days in easy office works as well. Info Letter December 2016 - Page 3 of 14
Endless water problems! It has never been as bad as this year! The water truck now also had to come to Chaweng several times. Since we only used to have a 1.000 liter tank, we were forced to use the remaining 1.000 liters for washing and cleaning the shelter. Mil from Luxembourg donated a 2.000 liter tank to our shelter and helped us with it so much. There is no single water drop coming out of the water pipe for months. Each month there are 500 to 700 euros additional "water costs" caused by this problem. The water man, who needs to come twice a day always looks very satisfiedb The government has called out a water crisis and the only solution to all this problems is the rainy season, which has not yet started. Info Letter December 2016 - Page 4 of 14
Repair works at the animal shelter I didn't hire new helpers out of saving reasons and therefore the renovation work only progresses very slowly. Some helpers just stop working for us, mostly because of family reasons. The working moral of our helpers is consistently bad. They come and go as they like. Penalties also do not help. I have surrendered to the Thai mentality and hope that the next day enough helpers appear at work and we can continue with our collapsed dog huts. Of course this is especially difficult if there are only 2 "jumpers". On some days, 6 to 7 of our helpers simply did not come. Everyone has different reasons, of course. On such days I am already satisfied when I get the daily work managed. Before we were able to start building the new huts, we needed to buy a lot of stuff and carry it through the whole shelter. Everybody needed to help. The biggest challenges were the cement pillars. Thanks to the wonderful invention of zip ties, the roof construction was quickly completed. Bamboo can not rust! The dogs were happy to be able to move in their new huts again. There are new small packs formating in the bigger enclosures and each dogs has his permanent place in the new huts. One dog refused to leave the enclosure during the works and sit back on his favourite bench right as we finished again. If we don't need to fight against windmills like Don Quixote and there won't be any storms, we hope to be ready soon building the new dog huts. Then we urgently need to renew the canopies of the single and double boxes. Info Letter December 2016 - Page 5 of 14
As it is very cheap to make the roof support out of bamboo rods, we will also use bamboo for the canopies. The roof panels are available in almost all sizes. They only have to be tightened. The cement pillars can be bought in the right length and at the days, we have enough helpers and I am at the shelter in person to supervise, the works goes quite fast... As soon as the first three huts were finished in enclosure No. 3, there was a great storm and had a tree fall and totally destroy a hut. A large branch has destroyed another hut in this enclosure. The dogs were lucky and nothing has happened to them - it has luckily hit two old huts. Marcus has assured me that the new roofs only got bumps. Well, let's hope for the best. We have many trees in the large enclosures! Our 4 heroes who bravely fought against all the branches and leaves. This is how most of the roofs of the boxes look like. Info Letter December 2016 - Page 6 of 14
The storm has also slammed mercilessly in Chaweng and since the Bougainvillea hedges are not free but stand directly at the wall, they simply tip over when the storm becomes too hard. Of course, we also have had heavy rain and that finished them off. Even with the help of many helpers, the hedges were not able to be erected again. First it caught the hedge on the neighbouring property and the next day I had to say goodbye to the hedge in our garden. I wonder how long it will take for them to look like this again... Daniela has returned to Germany reluctantly. She wants to give her son Nikola a chance for a better school graduation. After almost 2 years in Thailand, it turned out that the level of schools is significantly lower than in Germany. Daniela was a great volunteer. She loved her work and is infinitely sad that she had to go that step. She was a great help for us in the animal shelter and the external work. Daniela has been driving around the island with a helper several times a week and has collected dogs for treatment or vaccinated them and later she brought them to the animal shelter for neutering / sterilization. She has also vaccinated many dogs at the rubbish dump in Hua Thanon and regularly fed them Info Letter December 2016 - Page 7 of 14
Daniela has found five puppies in front of the animal shelter and raised them at home. She is looking for a good home for the last two. Of course Daniela has already taken them to Germany. Grace and Pepper are now 1 1/2 years old, vaccinated, neutered / sterilized, clean, able to run on a leash and they are super-loving. Please contact me if you are interested: info@samuidog.org Grace (female) Pepper (male) I actually do not have time for external work, but Daniela had vaccinated almost all the dogs at the garbage dump and they are now ready to be castrated. I promised I would personally take care of stopping the multiplication there. I admit, I was also a little curious to see this huge garbage mine. Almost all the dogs look very good. We have already brought dry food to the rubbish dump for several months now, and the women who dig through the garbage there or whatever else they are doing are all very friendly and give the dogs the food. Some dogs are also hard to catch, so they can help us. Info Letter December 2016 - Page 8 of 14
Phil from Snake-Rescue was with us once again and has been able to catch a really huge one. Unfortunately, he was our guest quite often this year. For the little snakes we do not even call him any more- our helpers kill them, which I do not like, but cannot prevent. Or they put the snake in a sack and return it to the wild. The snake wasn't able to leave the box anymore, after consuming a grown cat. The bars were just wide enough to creep in. After the stomach was full, there was no way out and it got caught.. MANDY was handed out to us by her "owner" because he didn't want her anymore. He obviously didn't notice her desolated situation. I have decided not to offend him. At least he was feeding her. The man didn't live in the outback, there must have been neighbours in that village, who have seen the way Mandy was running around!?you need to be able to deal with the thai carelessness towards everything; otherwise you will get mad every day. If it comes to animals, I loose my understanding very quickly. Mandy was very shy at the beginning and it took a while before she was able to enjoy cuddling. Info Letter December 2016 - Page 9 of 14
Temple and street work projects Our temple and street work team, Linda and Jay, are happy to have Tom back in Samui from his summer break at the chocolate country, Switzerland, so he can help them with the work at the many temples and other feeding stations around the island. He is not only a diligent helper if it comes to carrying the heavy food bags, he has also learnt so much through the last years, that there is hardly a situation with the animals, he couldn't handle perfectly! Sometimes, the team is lucky and the food bags don't need to be carried far - less back massages are necessary. Jay is already with us for over 12 years and also Linda and Tom belong to our team for more than 10 years now. No matter where our team is working at, there are always enough mouth to be feeded and also injured or sick animals are there. There are plenty of dogs in need of care in Samui and we know where to find them: at one of the many temples, that are taken care of by our team... Info Letter December 2016 - Page 10 of 14
Bsomewhere in the bushes, where you can find not much more beside palm treesb B.somewhere beside the roadb Info Letter December 2016 - Page 11 of 14
Bsomewhere on a deserted beachb or in one of the villages our team visits regulary, making sure all dogs are being vaccinated, sterilised and often food gets delivered toob B.and sometimes not only the dogs and cats are looking forward to our teams`s visit... Info Letter December 2016 - Page 12 of 14
More photos and information of the temple team and their work can be found in their own temple report http://www.samuidog.org/rundbrief_pdf/tempel_12_2016_e.pdf PLEASE HELP US TO FILL ALL HUNGRY MOUTHS ON KOH SAMUI AND DONATE FOR THE MANY FEEDING PLACES ON THE WHOLE ISLAND. The dogs and cats have only you and are depending on your help. I will have to hire two more helpers to prevent the bottlenecks caused by the very few workers who appeared at work in the last few months. On some days, 5 to 7 helpers simply did not come, which is nothing new for me. My dream helper should be: very animal loving, 35 to 40 years old, married, with children, driving license for a car, skilled in craft work (experience with welding work would be great), English speaking would be great as well, but not absolutely necessary. The most important thing is that I have enough helpers with driving licenses for the car, who can help if there are accidents. Of course the helpers and volunteers must also be driven to Ban Taling Nam and back to the animal shelter daily. The food donations need be picked up at the hotels and food must be brought to the feeding stations. Too many important cases in the dog and cat care cannot be managed because there is no staff. In the last few weeks it was hardly possible to do repair works because not all the helpers were there and I was already satisfied when we were able to do the daily works. Unfortunately we couldn't solve our expensive water problem in the shelter and two new helpers cost over 600 Euros more every month. The exchange rate is very bad again and I am worried about how to finance the many feeding stations. Please help us and donate for us to be able to keep the feeding stations. In the last four years I assembled a collection of the most beautiful pictures and completed them with a couple of little stories... I have done the same this year. They represent a photo story about the work we do and I am sure you will learn a lot about our different tasks. Enjoy looking and reading! http://www.samuidog.org/nice_pictures_2016_1_e.html If you decide to order at Zooplus.de or at Amazon.de we will receive between 3.5% and 8.5% of your purchase value which will be transferred automatically to the DRCS account. To this end, I would appreciate if you would conduct your purchases through us. In order to do so you need to click on our logo on our GERMAN website www.samuidog.org We receive every month about 300 Euros thanks to your shopping. Info Letter December 2016 - Page 13 of 14
We also have recorded to GOODING. Like Amazon GOODING has many shops in their arrangement. Just have a look. Furthermore we are since a long time recorded to BILDUNGSSPENDER. All those four give us a few percent if you buy something there. You can look which of those is the cheapest. There are a few more similar facilities but I don t think that s necessary because all of them have the same shops in their arrangement. Thank you very much again to all the sponsors and helpers from all over the world. Because of your help, since 17 years every dog and cat can be helped for free on Koh Samui. Stray animals which have not found a place to survive on their own on Koh Samui can be brought into the shelter. Because of your donations, we can still neuter at least six animals every day. In the last 17 years, over 20,000 dogs and cats have been neutered and countless vaccinations and treatments have been carried out. We offer free medical treatment for ALL stray cats and dogs, with a pick-up service even beyond our opening hours. For dogs and cats with a Thai owner we make everything for free. Of course we are happy for donations! Medicine in Thailand is rather inexpensive and from non Thais we need a little donation for our treatment with their dogs or cats. Unfortunately are the settled down strangers not always willing to give a donation because they say they just give food to the dog. HA HA Also in the last few months we had to take in some more dogs and many cats in our shelter as they couldn t find a way to survive on their own. With a sponsorship you can help to make sure that their bowls are never empty Please have a look on the website http://www.samuidog.org/adoption.htm. Our monthly costs amount to 17,000 Euro. If you are on Koh Samui, you are cordially invited to stop by and have a look at our records. The dogs and cats love to get some cuddles! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year wishing Brigitte and the Team Accounts for sponsors: http://www.samuidog.org/text3_english.htm Sponsoring a dog or a cat is 25 Euro a month We have animal friends in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Switzerland, The Netherlands and UK who collect donations for DRCS and then transfer the money to Thailand. Bitte helft uns mit eurer Spende die Hunde und Katzen weiterhin mit Futter und Medizin zu versorgen HELFT UNS HELFEN Info Letter December 2016 - Page 14 of 14