Rescue Group in Virginia Is Taking In Dogs from Thailand

Five dogs will be brought in from Thailand, into the Washington, D.C. area.  The effort is coming from A Forever Home Rescue Foundation (AFH) out of Virginia.

Four of the dogs will be brought into the United States with volunteers from AFH, and one other will follow on a separate flight.

This is all in an effort to help stop the illegal dog meat trade that is so prevalent in Thailand.  The volunteers had been seeing many blog posts on the subject, and began to wonder what they could do to help.

They contacted the Soi Dog Foundation, based in Thailand.  It was decided that the volunteers from AFH would make a trip out there in late October.  They have kept a Facebook blog of the trip, which you can check out by clicking here.

The latest update to the blog was as follows:

“Yesterday we went and met our dogs, and every one of them is EXTREMELY sweet and loves attention. We couldn’t have picked nicer dogs if we tried! We’ve got a few clips of the Bangkok clinic where they’re staying until our flight out on Thursday morning, which will be online sometime tomorrow, along with the clips from the Buriram government facility today and …Chutachuk animal market this past Sunday. Buriram facility is loaded to the gills with dogs (1500+), many of whom were clearly someone’s pet, and there just isn’t enough room or enough staff to handle them all. We’re hoping that, through this effort and our continuing relationship with Soi Dog Foundation, we’ll be able to help bring those numbers down and get these sweet dogs into great homes here in the US.”

In an email sent to a local Virginia news outlet, an AFH spokesperson outlined the idea and the effort going into it.  It said:

“As a local organization, A Forever Home Rescue Foundation (AFH) believes that our first responsibility is to help dogs in our area, but we have helped dogs from other parts of the country, and have even rescued a dog from Iraq. Sometimes horrific circumstances and heinous crimes against animals compel us to act and to help raise awareness regardless of geography.”

“You may or may not know that there is a thriving illegal dog meat trade in many parts of the world, but it is especially active in Thailand. Thousands of dogs are stolen every year to be sold illegally to the dog meat trade. They are sent over the border to Vietnam and Cambodia. Most were someone’s beloved pet. Given the horrible fate awaiting these dogs, we can’t sit back and let them suffer – we have to be part of the solution.”

These wonderful people are trying to make a difference in these dog’s lives.  They have set up a fundraising page at crowdrise.com.  For more information or to donate to this very worthy cause, go to www.crowdrise.com/SaveaDogfromThailand, or on the link in this story.