Social Media Share

Veterinarian treating a new patient in the dog hospital

 

Rescue

Soi Dog's teams of animal rescue officers, coordinated by a hospital office team, travel the island of Phuket and nearby province of Phang Nga to respond to animal emergencies and reports of stray dogs or cats requiring hospital treatment. The office team handle between 1,200 and 1,600 calls each month and many alerts demand immediate assistance from our animal rescue officers.

Once the rescued animals have arrived at the sanctuary hospital, they are visually assessed by a vet and quickly monitored for contagious diseases before being admitted. They are then taken to an assessment room for a more detailed diagnosis and, from there, proceed to whichever area of the hospital is relevant to their needs.

Cases often include distemper or parvovirus infection, sarcoptic and demodectic mange and canine transmissible tumours (TVT) – all of these diseases, rarely seen in the west, are prevalent in Thailand. Other common cases include infected wounds, bone fractures due to road traffic accidents, various skin conditions and tick-borne diseases. 

To try and reduce intake numbers in the hospitals, where possible Soi Dog’s Community Outreach Programme (COP) treats animals in the field. The COP teams are also responsible for some of the emergency pick-ups which occur throughout the year but try to focus on the cases that do not require hospitalisation, easing the pressure on the vet teams at the sanctuary.

 

 

 

Treatment

Soi Dog Foundation’s facilities in Phuket include state-of-the-art dog and cat hospitals. The former being the largest of its kind in Southeast Asia dedicated to the treatment of stray animals.

The hospitals see an average monthly intake of between 350 and 400 animals requiring a variety of different treatments. Most of the animals will be returned, post-treatment, to the area they were picked up from.

Some, though, will stay at the sanctuary if it is deemed unsafe for them to be returned to their area. Depending on their medical and behavioural status, many will then be included on the Soi Dog adoption programme.

The dog hospital at the Gill Dalley sanctuary is staffed 24 hours-a-day, enabling the highest quality care throughout the duration of a patient's stay.

 

 

Dog Hospital - Phuket

The dog hospital opened in 2016 and replaced a smaller, less equipped building which dated back to 2008 when Soi Dog first established the sanctuary in Mai Khao, Phuket. The hospital is furnished with the most advanced equipment of any such facility in the region. It provides the vet team with the greatest possible chance of saving lives and offers a high quality environment to animals in critical need of care.

 

 

The x-ray and ultrasound machines allow for early and accurate diagnosis of key conditions and the laboratory enables speedy analysis of blood and skin samples to help determine the required course of treatment as early as possible. The hospital is also equipped with a physio room and hydrotherapy pool, focusing on the rehabilitation of dogs with the most severe orthopaedic injuries, as well as providing pain-reduced therapy in the hydro pool.

The hospital is capable of accommodating around 170 cases simultaneously and is staffed 24 hours-a-day.

Cat Hospital - Phuket

Opened in late 2019, the cat hospital is dedicated to the treatment of stray cats. It has a surgery and dental suite, intensive care rooms and separate non-infectious and infectious wards to facilitate the isolating of cats carrying contagious diseases. It has the capacity to provide care for 144 cats at any one time.

 


Clinic - Bangkok

In Bangkok, where Soi Dog operates a small clinic, the CNVR programme (Catch | Neuter | Vaccinate | Return) is the main focus, though between 300 and 400 treatment cases are also addressed at the clinic each year.