- *** UPDATE!! ***
- February 2014
- Suki went for a meet-and-greet with dear Dustin and Julie a few days ago. They have an adorable, submissive, sweet little Lhasa Apso named Max. We were concerned, knowing Suki had been stressed in a multi-dog situation, but her foster parents were convinced the two dogs could be a match made in heaven - and so far, it sure seems they are right!
It was love at first sight all around when Suki first greeted her foster family. Max and Suki seemed to take to one another right away, and Suki happily lapped up all the love she immediately received from Dustin and Julie. She spent the evening going back and forth from one human to the other for pets and cuddles!
Suki had toys and bones waiting for her upon her arrival, and her foster family just updated us today to let us know both dogs have been enjoying their treats side by side with no issues.
Her family is going to do a foster-to-adopt to ensure their home is the right fit for her. However, already we have a fairly strong feeling that Suki is home, at long last. We are so happy for you, sweet Suki! May this be the forever happy ending we have all been dreaming of for you, dear girl!
Thank you to all who made this possible, from Elfe and her supporters for saving this dear girl from the dog meat trade, and to Elfe especially for vetting her, and for loving this dear girl for such a very long time; to kind-hearted international supporters of ISDF for donating towards Suki's flight funds; to Dustin, Julie, and sweet Max for welcoming dear Suki into their hearts and home with open arms.
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- My name is Suki.
- I am three years old, and I have spent nearly my whole life going from one cage to another. It's all I've ever really known, so I never complain.
In my current home, I spend much of my time in a cage as well, and my mom, Elfe, has noticed that when I am called, I never balk. Never. I just come obediently back to my cage, and resign myself to another period of watching and waiting, another period of confinement...until my next "recess" period.
I'm okay with caged life - after all, I can't really imagine any other. But my mom is not okay with it, and it seems to break her heart every time I dutifully trot back into my little four-walled world. And it breaks my heart to see her so sad.
So I guess - as they say - something's gotta give.
Anyway. I'd better start back at the beginning, so you can understand why I spend so much time boxed up.
I was a street dog, born and raised in urban Thailand. It wasn't a bad life, as far as things go, but it certainly has made life in a cage a little boring, since I once had the freedom to roam as far as my eyes could see, and my paws could take me.
Then again, that freedom came at a price. I was also "free" to be abused at will by anyone who didn't want me hanging around their home or business. I was "free" to be attacked by other dogs who were feeling territorial about a particular neighborhood, dumpster, or reliable food source.
Worst of all, I was "free" to be kidnapped right off the street where I lay sleeping, one dark and steamy night in the spring of 2012. I was just a young girl then, not as street-smart as I should have been. But I had lots to learn still. I was just a year and change, after all.
At any rate, they caught me before I was even fully awake, and a very sad chapter in my life began at that moment. You can read more about the atrocious and barbaric illegal dog meat trade below, but suffice it to say, what came next was not pretty.
But the thing of it was - before a gruesome end for me - I was rescued. Rescued!!
See, this is really a pretty giant miracle when you stop to think about it because it's estimated that approximately 1,000 of us a day are smuggled across porous borders into dog-eating nations where we meet very, very unhappy ends.
But I wasn't one of them. You can read more about my rescue below, but here's the important part to understand about the whole awful ordeal. From the moment I was caught, freedom became a distant and fading memory.
There was the claustrophobic, deep, terrifying, dark pit.
There were the crush cages, which I've actually blocked from my memory because I cannot bear to recall the way it felt being crammed inside those things for days.
There was life at Khemmarat shelter, where we were packed in like sardines (you can check out a photo below - yikes. Another awful memory I've buried) and had hardly any food, clean water, medical care - or even space to turn around.
There was the crowded truck transport I took on July 16, 2012, to leave that nightmarish place - yes! A second save for me!
They say a cat has nine lives…well, at this point in my life, it looks like I could give any cat worth its salt a run for its money…
Anyway.
Then there was the cage I boarded in at the vet clinic in Bangkok, while I waited out a quarantine period, got vaccinated, and got spayed.
Then there was the cage I flew in when I went to Koh Samui, a Thai island. I rode on the giant silver flying bird thing to get there. That was pretty cool, even though I was nervous. Yes, I was in yet another cage - but at least I had a pretty amazing view.
And finally, there is my cage here, at my home.
Where am I now, you ask? Oh, well that's the best part of all. Not only was I rescued from Khemmarat, but I was sponsored by kind people around the world who ensured that I could go to Elfes World, this amazing dog sanctuary in Thailand.
There are lots and lots of us living here who have been rescued from the terrible meat market trade, and each and every one of us is so very lucky.
But when I say lots, I mean - lots. Over 400, to be exact.
And that's kind of my downfall. See, they all seem to like each other, or at the very least - they all can get along. Sure, there are occasional spats over this and that - I mean, we've all been through heck and back, so it's natural to get a little nervy sometimes, even when we're finally in a safe, happy place - but basically, they all just kind of…get along. And my downfall is, I have trouble doing that.Well - I have trouble doing that all the time. That's the part that makes Elfe so sad. If I come out of my cage for short periods, when people are around to supervise me, I do really good, as you can see by my pictures.But there are lots of dogs to take care of and spend time with and watch over, and Elfe can't watch me all the time. And when I'm bored, and feeling stressed by all the dogs around me - especially when the humans are not right here, so I also feel vulnerable - I sometimes pick on other big dogs and really bother them badly. And that's just not fair to anyone - them, me, Elfe…so it's easier for all of us if I spend a lot of time in my cage.I do have some really good buddies here on the island, don't get me wrong - but they're all little, like my size (I'm 24 lbs) or smaller than me. They're also either mellow enough to ignore me when I tease them or tough enough to tell me off when I'm acting too fresh. And since they're little, I don't get worked up when they tell me off or ignore me.I have some bigger friends too, but I tend to be awfully choosy about which bigger dogs I like and which I don't like. I'm actually okay with most dogs when they are new to me, and might even do okay in dog parks and other social settings because of that, but it's big dogs whom I know better that I sometimes develop beef with.Actually, in a home of my own, where I don't feel so nervous all the time, I might do good with lots of other dogs. It's really hard to say, because my mom can only see what I'm like here, among 400+ other dogs. And she is heartbroken to acknowledge that as happy as she is that she saved me, she now realizes that here, with so many other doggies, is not the place for me.So she is looking for a home for me, somewhere where I can be the star of the show, the center of attention - or at least somewhere where if I do share the spotlight, it will be with a smaller dog or smaller dogs whom I can buddy up with.Mom thinks that I may be a very different dog in a real family setting and I want to make her proud and show her that yes, I could be. But I hardly even know where to start!
First of all - does this kind of thing really even actually exist?? I think mom is telling fairy tales. Could there really be a place where just a person, or a couple of people, live together, in a roomy space that's under a nice, rainproof roof, with walls that are not cage bars? Crazier yet, could it be possible that a human, or a small group of humans, living like that, might actually want a humble little somebody like me? And more than want me - that they might want to actually love me, play with me, help me show off my sporting skills with a tennis ball or a frisbee (I am an awesome athlete, so life in a cage is kind of hard for that reason, too), and understand how much I worry about getting hurt by other dogs?Cuz that's kind of my innermost secret: it's not that I mess with big dogs because I want to pick fights. I'm not a bully - I'm actually a favorite with visitors to Elfes World for the very reason that I am such an absolute lover!The joy I get from interacting with humans who visit me is just untold - so this makes all the people who come to the sanctuary want to pet me, cuddle with me, see my awesome leaps and catches, and bask in the warmth of my wagging tail and bright, excited, adoring eyes.
Elfe likes to wow them with my talents - I was born to please people, and I am obedient and smart. Wow - what I could do if I had a crack at a real class, like the ones people talk about sometimes when they visit me. They say, "Imagine her in agility! Imagine her in obedience! What a dog!" and my tail wags so hard I whip their legs because I know they are praising me, and nothing makes me - the People Pleaser - happier.
I wish I could show the same love I shower on people to every doggie here at Elfes World, but my little secret is that I'm too scared to. On the streets, from the time I was born, I was the victim to any dog whom I looked at wrong. I could be trotting down the street and unknowingly enter "enemy territory" of a dog pack, and BOOM - it was "Hurt Suki" City, baby. And life at Khemmarat really cemented my fears because we were shoulder to shoulder there, and hardly even had the square footage needed to curl up in a ball for a nap. Fights were frequent from rampant stress and lack of resources, and I was randomly attacked countless times.My rescued friends here at Elfes World have mostly managed to overcome their similar fears, but for me, in this setting - with literally hundreds of dogs around my cage at all times - I just cannot relax and accept them.The thing is, I want to. I wish I could be like them. They all look so happy as they run around, playing and barking and chasing and cuddling and wrestling with one another. I watch them all through the bars of my cage and I'm okay with just being here in my little place, checking them all out from a safe distance - it's kind of fun, like watching TV, if you know what I mean.
But I guess my mom is right. It's not really the life for me, at least not for forever.
And I don't want to go back to the streets, because they're super scary, and there is never enough food, and so many mean people wander out there - and worst of all, those horrible smugglers could come back and catch me once again. And surely, I would not have the good fortune to be rescued from them a second time.
But I am already three years old, and time is passing…and my mom shakes her head sadly and worries about me and desperately dreams that I find a forever placement with one of these fantasy families she always tells me about.
My mom is super smart - she knows everything about every one of us. She has a memory like a card catalog in a library!
So these wild stories she tells me about this third option - not this cage, and not the streets - but away, over the ocean, to a home and family - well, it's just gotta be true. Mom has never made anything up before. And she loves me so much…just thinking about me in a place like that always makes her smile, even when it's through tears, because she knows how hard it will be to say goodbye to me, but she sees the possibility of this wonderful future stretching out before me.
What do you think? Do you think people and places like the paradise my mom describes really do exist?
Do you think your people, and your place, might even be the paradise for me?
A life without cages…a life without fear…a life filled with love.
These are my mom's dreams for me.
Do you think you might know someone who could provide the answer to her prayers?
For more information about adopting Suki, or any of our available dogs, please contact our executive director, Dawn Trimmel, at (414) 426-4148. You can also visit our Facebook page to learn more about our organization. Thank you!I am a victim of the dog meat trade.
I grew up on the streets of Thailand, in a "survival of the fittest" climate, where I had to fend for food and avoid many dangers.One day, some men approached me while I slept and tossed a wire lasso over my head. As I awoke, struggling and snapping with fear, they used a long stick with crude pincers attached to the end of it to lift me and then dump me into a truck.Lots of other terrified dogs were in the truck alongside me. We were driven into a dense jungle-like area, away from main roads and towns. Tropical trees provided cover as the same horrid men used the wire lassos and pincers on us again, this time to grab us and drop us into a pit. We fell through the air for a terrifying moment, then landed on a hard concrete floor. Some of us were injured in the fall; all of us were terrorized.The pit cover was replaced once we were all inside it, and hardly any light penetrated from above. There was no food or water in our hot, dark, claustrophobic jail, and nowhere to escape. But we didn't fight one another or really do much of anything other than freeze with fear - we were all too traumatized.Over the next couple of days, the pit cover opened a few times, light blinded us from above, and more dogs were dropped in amongst us until the men apparently decided that had enough of us to satisfy their greed and justify an legal smuggling run across the border.There was the sound of the pit cover opening again, and as we all blinked, blinded once again by the light, expecting more dogs to drop down amongst us, the long pincer stick returned instead. We were grabbed around the neck once more, and then shoved into a new form of torture - a compact "crush cage" - with many other dogs.The cages were set on end and we were dropped in and shoved and packed like sardines until limbs and tails emerged from between the wire bars and we were nearly suffocating from such close quarters. None of us could move more than literally one inch in any direction.Then our crush cages were piled high onto the flatbed of a truck, with more and more cages on top of, and around the sides of, ours. Many of us lost limbs and tails in crushing injuries as the staggering weight stacked higher and higher.In order to conceal us - live contraband intended for smuggling cross-country and over two border crossings - a heavy, non-breathable tarp was thrown over the entire truck's cargo, cutting off even our access to fresh air - the last resource we had.
We sat on that truck for a long time. I was so dazed and disoriented that it could have been hours or it could have been days - I really can't say for sure. I guess they were waiting for an all clear signal from they boss. They drank water noisily from bottles as they laughed and joked near our truck and we watched them with desperate eyes because of course, during this time, we had been under terrible stress and had not had food or water for a dangerously-long period of time.I was certain that the end must be near - I was sure I would suffocate from the heat, from this extreme overcrowding, and from the long stretch of time that slowly ticked by. Indeed, many dogs around me perished.It was evening, as dusk fell, when our truck finally rumbled to life and attempted to make a run northward for the border. The smugglers were headed for Vietnam, by way of Laos. But near the river's edge which separated Thailand from Laos, where we would have once again been thrown about like so much live garbage - this time into overcrowded smuggling boats - new sounds reached deep into our desolate quarters, inspiring fresh apprehension to those of us still alive and still conscious.Voices - angry and commanding - fell upon our ears. We were frightened, but not for long. Much to my surprise, we were rescued that day, and I owe my life to the caring individuals and government officials who came together to save us all from yet more suffering in an extended transport, and eventual slow torture and death, to be someone's adrenaline-infused meal (which some cultures consider good for one's health and virility).I am forever grateful to our saviors. A few of the Royal Police even cracked open water bottles and tried their best to proffer sips to those of us in cages with access to bars facing them. But there was too little water and too many dogs. And anyway, it would be a long while before we could even be released from our terrifying confines.We were slowly transported another long distance, still in those horrible crush cages, still packed like sardines - it seemed to take forever. I was in so much pain and filled with claustrophobic terror - what next??We ended up at the Khemmarat government-run shelter, one of several large livestock centers in the Thai nation. There, our cages were unloaded with the use of cranes, hoists and manpower. One by one, our cage wires were cut and we literally had to be unpacked and unfolded from the positions we had been held prisoner in for so many long and torturous days.
Next, those of us who could stand and move still were herded into a large dog kennel. To be able to move freely again, and to have access to large vats of water and a long trough with food, was nothing short of miraculous, after all I had endured.But although my life was marginally-improved now that I'd been "saved", we all still suffered - this time from widespread disease and massive overcrowding. Food was scarce; we lived practically one on top of the other; dog fights were frequent and often vicious; and there was little to no medical attention available. Once again, I was surrounded by terrible suffering and watched as many fellow dogs died around me at a rapid rate.
A long, frightening, sad period of my life passed here. I wondered if my whole life would play out behind these bars, and I shivered with fear to imagine such a fate.But somehow, through some magical stroke of fate, Lady Luck intervened on my behalf. Someone, somewhere, saw my photo, looked into my eyes, and knew that they could not leave me behind.For the first time in my strife-filled life, I am seeing the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. In my foster home in Bangkok, I am being shown kindness and affection; I am learning confidence, and polishing my manners; and I am discovering the meaning of family, and the meaning of love. It has been a glimpse into a life I never even knew existed: lives where doggies have homes and families to call their very own, lives where they will never know fear again.It's a life I so desperately want now…but one which will be brand-new to me and often confusing. I have so much to learn about life as a pet dog. I know I can do it - I've made it this far already! - but please, won't you gently show me the ropes, and have patience with me when I make missteps sometimes, as I surely will? In return, I will repay you a thousandfold.I just need a fair chance at a life I could only dream of when I was that terrified dog, crammed into a crate, baking alive in the tropical heat, who had given up all hope.Thanks for reading my story.Love, Suki
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