Spay/neuter & vaccination success reduce rabies to the vanishing point just a year after emergency quarantine
BANGKOK, Thailand––Good news for both dogs and humans in Thailand, and for visitors to Thailand, came between the lines of bad news from the Bangkok-based “sustainability hub” Khaosod English on September 12, 2026.
The bad news was that a 36-year-old man, Pruettinan Tong-on, Khaosod English reported, “was killed after his motorcycle hit a dog, causing him to fall onto the road before he was struck by a pickup truck.”
The truck driver, Watthana Silanamthiang, 47, “remained at the scene and gave a statement to police,” on Phahonyothin Road in Khlong Luang district.
The good news between the lines
The good news between the lines was that such a relatively mundane traffic fatality appeared to be the biggest and worst news involving street dogs in Thailand in many months, Thailand being a nation long known for abundant and often problematic street dogs.
Not that dog attacks are no longer an issue in Thailand, 113 years after the beginning of the national anti-rabies vaccination campaign and more than 25 years after efforts to ban dangerous dog breeds began with an import ban on Rottweilers.
But dog attacks in Thailand these days tend to involve dangerous owned dogs, not rabid street dogs.
70-year-old killed by her own pit bull––who earlier killed a 56-year-old man
For instance, reported The Thaiger, meaning “The Tiger,” on September 9, 2026, “A 70 year old woman,” Wandee Apibanthanakit, was found dead after being attacked by a seven-year-old pit bull at a rented house in Bangkok,” reportedly with severe injuries to her face, neck, and both arms.
The pit bull, an XL Bully named Giant, “had previously been involved in a fatal attack in Bang Lamung, Chon Buri, in 2021,” the Bangkok Daily News revealed.
In that incident, reported Neill Fronde for the Pattaya News on April 16, 2021, victim Wisit Sanguan, 56, who had raised Giant “since he was only three months old,” Fronde wrote, was “sleeping with Giant when the pit bull suddenly woke and viciously attacked the sleeping man.”
Giant “took over 30 minutes to subdue initially and remained aggressive after the event,” Fronde continued, “prompting the Chon Buri Pit Bull Club to put Giant to sleep with medication in order to chain him up and remove him from the premises.”
Victim adopted pit bull to save him from euthanasia
The second victim, Wandee Apibanthanakit, reportedly adopted Giant to keep him from being euthanized.
“Wandee went to extraordinary lengths,” reported Jeff Tomas for CTN News, “to ensure Giant had a comfortable place to live out his days. She rented a single-story house in the Bueng Kum district entirely for the large dog to roam. She even hired a live-in housekeeper to stay at the property and keep Giant company. Every day, Wandee traveled from her main residence to feed, clean, and play with the brown pit bull.
“On the evening of the attack,” Tomas continued, “witnesses say Giant appeared somewhat irritable and physically unwell. Wandee opened Giant’s enclosure to gently wipe his face, just as she normally did during her visits. The housekeeper tried to secure the dog with a rope, but the animal suddenly turned highly aggressive.
Candidate for euthanasia even without killer history
“The Watchdog Thailand Foundation is now working with local authorities to carefully determine the dog’s future,” Tomas added, suggesting that “Giant will likely be transferred to a specialized animal shelter, where staff are very familiar with his history.”
Overlooked was that, as Beth Clifton observed in video of Giant, lack of exercise had caused him to become obese. He suffered from a metal collar that looked as though it was so tight that it had become embedded in his neck. He further suffered from open scarred pressure sores on his elbows and other parts of his body, and a significant cyst on one paw, shown in one close-up photo. Badly worn claws showed his constant confinement on a concrete floor.
Veterinary records also showed, according to Thai media, that Giant had an unidentified tick-borne blood disease, and had undergone surgical removal of his spleen and chemotherapy, apparently to treat hemangiosarcoma, an aggressive cancer arising from his blood-vessel-forming cells.
Giant was, in short, a candidate for euthanasia even if he had not killed one owner, and now another.
Soi Dog Foundation fixed 270,220 dogs & cats in fiscal year
The second fatal attack by Giant the XL Bully overshadowed the announcement the same day by Soi Dog Foundation president and cofounder John Dalley that Soi Dog “reached a new record” in the preceding fiscal year: “270,220 dogs and cats neutered and vaccinated,” several times more than have been sterilized and vaccinated by any other organization in the world.
“With teams operating across 28 of Thailand’s provinces,” Dalley explained, “we continued to expand our reach where it’s needed most.
“2025 also marked a decade of our world-leading program partnership with Dogs Trust,” Dalley added, “who continue to generously fund 50% of our Greater Bangkok program.”
U.K. & Thailand compared
Dogs Trust, headquartered in London, England, is a leading opponent of the British Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 prohibition on keeping five pit bull variants: American Pit Bulls, Dogo Argentinos, Fila Brasilieros, Japanese Tosas, and XL Bullies.
Thailand and the United Kingdom have approximately equal human populations, but the Thai dog population, estimated at 12 to 18 million, is substantially larger than the British dog population, estimated at 11.7 to 12.7 million.
Yet the United Kingdom annually has three to five times as many fatal non-rabid dog attacks, more than two-thirds of them by “bully” breeds, the import of which has nominally been banned in Thailand since 2006, albeit with erratic enforcement and no provision for impoundment of banned breeds already in the country. Indeed, even Giant is apparently again available for adoption.
(See Which kill more, rabid dogs in Thailand or pit bulls in the United Kingdom? and Attacks push Thailand toward tougher pit bull & Rottweiler bans.)
(Beth Clifton collage)
Thailand sees drop in rabid attacks
A year, meanwhile, made a considerable difference in the dog news from Thailand.
On September 9, 2025, exactly one year before John Dalley announced the Soi Dog spay/neuter and vaccination success, and before Giant the pit bull killed his second owner, the Thailand Department of Livestock Development “urgently declared parts of Bangkok and Samut Prakan,” a southern Bangkok suburb, “temporary epidemic zones following a rabies outbreak, imposing a 30-day ban on the movement of dogs, cats and other mammals,” the Straits Times reported.
“The outbreak has been classified as a serious health threat that can spread to humans, dogs, cats, cattle, buffalo, and other mammals. The order,” the Straits Times added, “was issued after rabies cases were detected in Nong Bon subdistrict, Prawet district, Bangkok.”
There were seven human rabies deaths in Thailand in 2025, along with more than 200 rabies cases identified in animals, mostly dogs.
The only human rabies death in Thailand in 2026, by contrast, was “that of a 36-year-old man who refused to see a doctor for a vaccination after being bitten by a puppy of unidentifiable ownership in late 2025,” the Straits Times said.
The victim, an immigrant from neighboring Myanmar, developed rabid symptoms on January 23, 2026, and died two days later.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Rabies vaccination campaign began in 1913
Few nations have formally and systematically addressed dog attacks for longer than Thailand. The Queen Saovabha Memorial Institute at Chulalongkorn University in central Bangkok was founded in 1913 as a branch of the Pasteur Institute, headquartered in France, after a rabid dog bite on the royal palace grounds killed a Thai princess.
The institute introduced a national anti-rabies vaccination campaign. Wars, poverty, lack of literacy, underdeveloped transportation, and the difficulty of maintaining the cold chain in the Thai tropical climate combined to inhibit progress, but from 1977 to 2000 Thailand had only 22 confirmed human rabies deaths in 23 years.
What Thailand did not yet have was either a national dog population control program, any sort of systematic animal control for that matter, or widespread recognition of non-rabid fatal dog attacks.
Beginning a high-volume dog sterilization and vaccination program in Phuket on the Thai southern peninsula shortly before the December 26, 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the Soi Dog Foundation expanded post-tsunami to Bangkok, then to the rest of Thailand, and also now operates in Vietnam.
(See Soi Dog Foundation in 2024 helped Vietnam to cut rabies deaths by 20%.)
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Thanks
With gratitude to you for another interesting and informative article, and to Soi Dog for its ongoing success.
It seems that a “keep them alive at any cost” mentality only served to create a life of misery and isolation for Giant. There was no way to win – for the dog or the humans he was exposed to. These are sad cases which underscore the need to prevent/ban the breeding.