For the last four months, we’ve been keeping an eye on a golden retriever. The poor girl was kept on a chain inside a building and used for breeding. We continually tried to rescue her but her owners wanted to use her to make money from her and weren’t keen to let her go. 

‍

Sadly, in this time, beautiful Taylor Swift gave birth to seven puppies and lost five of them, all before we were able to pick her up.

Navigating local dog politics

Last week, we were finally able to free Taylor from her chains. We can’t always discuss everything that goes on behind the scenes of the rescues, mainly for the dogs’ safety. Often this is because we risk annoying previous owners and making them more likely to retaliate towards us or the dogs if we “expose” them online. 

But in Taylor’s case, it took a village to get her free. From the local people who sneaked into her shelter and fed her, to the fellow rescuers who helped us out, and the people who alerted us to her in the first place, many many people cared about this little dog and wanted to get her and her puppies safe. 

Although Taylor lost most of her puppies through distress and being unable to feed them, she managed to look after and nourish two. Her previous owner obviously wanted to make money from Teddy and Christina, the puppies, but hadn’t been able to sell them so far.

‍

The backyard breeding problem

In Koh Samui, and Thailand as a whole, you’d think there are so many street dogs that people don’t want to breed more. But like we see in rescues across the world, there will always be demand for purebred dogs. There are shelters filled to the brim with beautiful dogs who no one wants, while people pay thousands for a pedigree in Asia, Europe, and the US.

That might seem like a good thing for dogs like Taylor who people actually want. But the issue is that they’re often used for breeding with no care for their comfort or welfare. Taylor might only be two years old but we know if we hadn’t stepped in and freed her, she’d probably have been used over and over again for puppies.

‍

What's next for Taylor and her puppies?

We managed to get Taylor and her puppies out just in time. They were immediately brought back to Happy Doggo land where they all got a lovely bath and were fed some delicious food. 

Little Teddy was immediately adopted to Naii’s friend Moritz - at 8 weeks, he was the perfect age - and mum and Christina will also go up for adoption and find lovely homes. One of the first things we did for little Taylor was to sterilize her. Some people might think she needed some time to relax but actually, while she could still bear puppies, she was valuable and at risk. Now, she’s not worth money to her previous owners and we don’t need to worry about them wanting her back.

‍

As with every dog, they’ll go through rigorous checks before they go to their forever homes and we’ll pay for little Christina to be sterilized by her forever family so she doesn’t need to go through what her mum did. Sterilization is the way to break the chain of suffering for these pups and with our goal of spaying and neutering 50,000 dogs this year, we hope we’ll be able to change the lives of many many more like this beautiful family. 

‍

‍

Watch Taylor Swift and her puppies' arrival at Happy Doggo land

‍

Are you interested in adopting a dog like Stella? Check out our adoptions page