Toby/Malee (Adopted!)

* * * UPDATE * * *

May 2013

Toby (AKA Malee) has been adopted by the lovely Lisa in Canada, and she journeyed to her forever home last week!

Malee is now enjoying life in gorgeous Nova Scotia (despite all the rain this week, ha ha ha) with her new doggie brother and sister, Jake and Ava, and her new kitty siblings. 
Life as a house dog requires some tweaking after all that time in a pair of livestock centers, but she is doing amazing so far, and Mom (and her new grandma and grandpa) report that she is a total cuddlebug. 
Now if only she would get one good swipe from a kitty to remind her who the house bosses really are...LOL

Thank you to all who made this possible, from Patarin for pulling, transporting, vetting, and fostering Toby/Malee; to kind-hearted international supporters who generously donated to help cover her costs; and to Malee's adoring new mom who awaits her with open arms.

* * * * *

My name is Toby.

Life has dealt me so many disappointments. 
But despite that, I have refused to give up hope. They say patience is a virtue, and if that's the case, then I may be the most virtuous girl out there.

You got that right - GIRL. Despite my name, I'm a sweet little lady - and an adorable, tiger-striped, soft and feathery one at that. I'm a petite little thing, weighing in at just 12 pounds. 

I've waited a long long long time for a home to call my own. 
In fact I've waited most of my two years on this earth.

My story, and the first of my many disappointments, started shortly after I was born, for I was undoubtedly - like all of us - either born to a stray street mommy, or if I was someone's pet, I was not kept safe from harm.
I was acquired by dog meat traders the way we always are - captured as a stray under cover of night. Or perhaps I was bought or traded in broad daylight by my family, who may have been so poor that they thought the price of my undying love and loyalty warranted little more than a plastic bucket (the usual going rate for a dog like me).

I would have been snared in a cruel noose-like lasso or with a medieval-looking metal pincher-type apparatus, and tossed into a wire cage set on end, the better to cram us in, with a dozen other dogs - a cage barely large enough to fit one of us comfortably.
Here, my hope tried to leave me, but I refused to give up. 

My faith was rewarded.
The Thai government forces, or perhaps the Thai Royal Police, stopped my truck, looked under suspicious tarps, and found us all half-smothered under there - those that were still alive.
We were saved - but like the thousands of others who are currently being "saved" now (thanks to a growing international outcry - thank goodness), although we are only a small percentage of the true numbers of daily victims, there is still no room for us at the inn, so to speak. So we are often dumped at one place, and later transferred to another, as the authorities in charge see fit.
Such was the case with me.

Myself, and the other survivors of my "shipment", were first brought to Nakhon Phanom, a  

government livestock shelter in the far north. Like the other shelters, overcrowding was rampant, and food was scarce, despite the best efforts of animal charity groups on the ground. 

I admit that my hope was severely challenged in that despondent environment, but I soldiered on, eking out food, and living for the moments when I found a few spare feet of space to stretch out and sleep, as I tried to ignore the pathetic sounds of suffering and broken hearts from the others around me.

After many long, difficult, lonesome months, I sensed a change in the air. All the dogs around me were keyed up. Something was happening - trucks were readying, people were separating dogs out, and looping some with rope to move to the trucks.

I had heard the other dogs whisper at night about a place where humans are kind, and gentle - where food is served every day and night - where there is soft bedding to rest tired bones on, and a peaceful quiet instead of constant noise, sadness, and suffering. A place they called "home".
It seemed too much to believe that I might be taken onto one of the trucks - perhaps even taken to this "home" place.

When my turn DID come, I was too happy and shocked to do much but meekly let myself be lifted into the truck with the many others. I wanted to pinch myself! It seemed I was going to this paradise, this land of plenty, this place called "home"...
But hope almost deserted me entirely when the truck finally rumbled to a stop, after nearly half a day's hard journey, at a duplicate of the hell I had lived in for so long already. Where was the soft bedding - the filled food bowls - that one special person I was supposedly going to get to call my own?

I found myself at Buriram livestock center. 
And once again, I began another interminable wait, in the same conditions I endured at Nakhon Phanom, and among so very many dogs, with so little food and resources for us to share.
See me there, at far left, peeking out at the camera timidly?




I was lucky to have been saved from a horrible fate, but I admit that at times during my stay at Buriram, I found myself wondering if there really was a world outside those bars. 
It seemed that life was determined to suck the very marrow of hope from my bones, but I wouldn't let go of my dreams and my faith in this fantastical place called "home". 
After all - if I'd let go of my hope - what would I have had left?
I couldn't give up just yet.


And my patience and faith was rewarded!



Little did I know that far across an ocean, people were looking at my photo - supplied by kind-hearted angel Patarin - and saying that yes - they would help me! They would save me from this hell on earth and bring me across the ocean to find me a real home, a real family.
And those same people did just that - they told my story to other people, and one of those people - a kind lady named Lisa - looked into my eyes and she picked me!
She wanted me!!! Toby! To be her very own little girl!

But I couldn't have known that.

Nor could I have known that those same people, and dear Lisa, would be absolutely devastated when a freak summer storm hit our Buriram shelter in late April and tore it asunder, leaving uprooted trees everywhere in its wake - fences ripped right out of the ground - many of my fellow dogs, escaped and at risk of running back into the hands of the dog meat traders...

Many wept and worried over my fate, and the fate of all of the other poor dogs of Buriram.

But me - and my buddies Manja and Simba, also at Buriram, and also spoken for by ISDF(though still currently awaiting adoptive families) - all had the smarts to stick around the shelter. We didn't yet know that we were about to be saved, but we listened to a little voice that whispered to us to have faith and stay put - and so we did.

ISDF friends - a team from Soi Dog Bangkok, headed by Pimpakharn - came as quickly as they could. They searched through the devastation and amazingly, found me, Simba, and Manja, hiding within the ravaged shelter compound still, and safely out of harm's way.

And now we're OUT! 

We're free of the Buriram livestock center, having been transported by truck to safety by another angel on earth, Pimpakharn and her team from Soi Dog Bangkok!

We are with them now, in quarantine, receiving care, treatment, shelter from the elements, plenty of food and water, and lots of loving TLC.

Soon we will go to Patarin's vet for vaccinations and a final checkup, before heading to her house for loving foster care. And from there, I will soon fly all the way across an ocean and straight into the arms of my new mommy, Lisa!

I know - it sounds like a fairy tale - and it is!

It really, really is!!

I am Toby.

I am a victim of the dog meat trade.

I almost ran out of hope.
I almost ran out of luck.

I managed to hang on to just enough of both to get me to where I am today - just days away from flying home to my very own happy ending.

For the first time in my life, I see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

I'm so very close to a life filled with love, warmth, food, happiness, and all the best things that life has to offer with my new mommy, Lisa, in Canada! 
Thank you for following my journey and cheering me on, every step of the way.

Love, Toby