RY OF ANIMAL-LOVER GILL
y when y. out to r him. ag the truck own at hasing another dog and cracked her ribs. The next day she started to feel ill, like she had the flu coming.
“A few days later, she said, ‘You’re going to have to take me to hospital, my legs are in agony’.”
Gill had gone into septic shock after picking up a rare bacterial infection in the paddy field. Over the next few days, her legs turned grey and her heart stopped several times.
Medics warned that Gill’s chances of survival were slim.
But John persuaded his insurers to fly her to a top hospital in Bangkok, where she remained in a coma for a month.
He said: “She later
nd on wedding day joked it was the first time she’d been in a private jet – and she couldn’t have a glass of champagne.
“They told me that if she lived, she was likely to lose her arms and her legs. But she came out of the coma and they managed to save her arms.
“She was released three days before Christmas with bags of medication and dressings – but she still insisted on making Christmas dinner.”
The next day, the couple went to meet friends at a restaurant when they noticed shards of broken glass everywhere.
John said: “People were talking about a wave but it seemed like nothing serious. Then we got a phone call to say that Leone had been killed.
“After the first wave hit, she stayed to clean the bungalow she’d been renting but then the second wave came in and the building was destroyed.” Numb with grief, Gill and John hired a car and drove to one of the worst-hit areas in a bid to help those affected.
John said: “I got involved in sorting and wrapping bodies. They were piled up three or four high.
“Gill was in a wheelchair so she was talking to people and counselling them.
“She and Leone had met through their love of dogs.”
Thousands of dogs were abandoned as a result of the tsunami – their owners killed, homes destroyed and food sources washed away.
In the months that followed, the foundation was inundated with offers to help the dogs – and in keeping with Leone’s wishes, it rented its first shelter.
In 2008, the charity moved to its permanent home in northern Phuket.
Three years later, it started campaigning to end the dog meat trade between Thailand and Vietnam.
It also helped draft Thailand’s first animal welfare law in 2014 – which made it illegal to eat cat and dog meat – and is lobbying for bans across Asia.
John said: “Gill was the biggest champion of strays. She toiled day and night to provide a refuge for animals who had no one else to turn to.
“There would be no Soi Dog Foundation without her.”
Gill was an incredible person, the bravest I’ve
ever met
Just Gill: The Story of Gill Dalley, co-founder of Soi Dog Foundation, is priced at £12 and will be out in June. Pre-order now at shop.soidog.org/ collections/all