Poisoned dog food tragedy
Friday, 8 April 2011 13:06
Recently, one of our policy-holders alerted us to a terrible tragedy that happened in Thailand at the beginning of this year.
Founded in 1999, the Dog Rescue Centre, Samui, Thailand, rescues hundreds of stray dogs and cats and ensures that the sick or injured are treated, all are vaccinated and, wherever possible, re-homed. Education plays a big part in what they do and they even run a service where locals are encouraged to bring in any stray dogs or cats they see, so that they can be treated and sterilised where necessary, all free of charge.
Now, the DRCS is home to approximately 300 animals and are looked after by a team of dedicated volunteers. However, in February of this year, one of their dogs died from internal bleeding. Later on, another was found dead and a further dog was showing symptoms of liver damage. The centre was very concerned that the dogs were being poisoned and disinfected everything in sight, but dogs were still dying. They stopped using the water from their wells, worried that somehow pesticides from some ground clearance near to their site may have contaminated the water, but still, dogs were becoming seriously ill or dying. This was happening in most of the compounds, but they noticed that in some areas, where dogs were not eating dry dog food, they seemed fine. They stopped feeding their dogs the dry food and they started recovering immediately.
The supplier of this food was a vet, and when they contacted him, he didn't seem at all surprised and even offered to blend the poisoned food with some uncontaminated food; that way, the dogs would just become ill and not die! A husky breeder on the island, who also obtained his food from the same source, lost all 14 of his dogs.
In total, the Centre lost 49 dogs to this poisoned food.
The Centre was faced with having to prove that the food was poisoned, which involved very expensive tests to be carried out, replace all the food they now knew was contaminated and try and get the supplier prosecuted. They then found out that the supplier of this food seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth. They are aiming to recoup their losses, but are not very hopeful.
As if that wasn't enough, at the end of March, Koh Samui suffered the worst flooding in decades. Volunteers struggled to save the dogs from drowning by ripping up paving slabs to elevate the benches they slept on, but, thankfully, all survived.
Elaine Fairfax, Founder and MD of Animal Friends Pet Insurance, was so moved by their story, she arranged to have £2,000 sent to them on behalf of Animal Friends so that they will be able to replace the lost food. They were so grateful for the donation and we all hope that they are able to get back to normal as soon as possible.
You can visit the Dog Rescue Centre's website from here: http://www.samuidog.org/start_english.html
