This is Lila, a lovely and extremely affectionate little red spitz/golden mix with a darling miniature ‘ridgeback’ who was rescued from the horrific southeast Asian dog meat trade…luckily, she is now safe, but desperately craving a forever family to call her very own!
When Lila was rescued, she was so small, just a baby. This was a new and awful development in a practice that was already horrific – puppies and small dogs were now being transported for their meat, however meager, due to international pressures to end the trade.
Lila was packed with dozens of other dogs into a ‘crush cage’, about to be illegally smuggled across Thailand’s border into Laos and then Vietnam, where she would have been slowly tortured before being eaten – a customary practice, as adrenaline is thought to make dog meat more tasty. Today, against all odds, she is instead prancing with joy to be safe from harm!

The Thai Royal Police, suspicious of a large tarp-covered truck that was about to cross the northern border, discovered dozens of dogs huddling in terror and crushed into rusty wire cages like sardines. They were rescued and sent to an overcrowded government livestock center – saved, BUT NOT SAFE. Unfortunately many dogs cannot survive at these facilities due to overcrowding, lack of food and clean water, lack of medical care, and deadly diseases and dog fights.

A kind person saw Lila’s photo and saved her life. She was sponsored and transported to the Thai island of Koh Samui, where she now lives at a dog sanctuary with nearly 700 other dogs, most of them fellow dog meat trade victims. She is so happy to be there with dog mom Elfe, who loves them all.

Lila has been at Elfesworld for over a year and a half, since she was 5 months old. But she is lonely…she plays with her doggie friends and desperately vies for attention from visitors to the sanctuary because she clearly wants nothing more from life than a forever family.

Visitors often describe Lila’s response to their arrival as ‘dancing’ because she literally BOUNCES to attract their attention (hey, whatever works, right??) – and once she has it, she never wants it to end. This little girl really needs a home and family to call her own!

Lila is a petite 2 year old spayed female, weighing approximately 20 lbs. The International Street Dog Foundation looks forward to welcoming her to Chicago with open arms in early May. We know the perfect family is out there just waiting for her to join them and make them complete, and we cannot wait to see her in a forever home, at long last!

  • Hometown Koh Samui, THAILAND
  • Age/Weight 2 yrs/20 lbs
  • Gender Female, spayed
  • Rescuer Elfesworld