Marianne Guillet is a French ex-architect of 36, who turned to veterinary care and nursing and later surgery and medicine as a result of her experiences during her extensive travels in Asia and Africa.

She wrote to Moments of Joy she was so moved by the "unacceptable suffering and exploitation of animal (and people in many cases) I confronted that I realised that no research nor title would ever mean anything to me, when I could use my time, skills and determination to care and save lives, raise awareness and fight for the respect due to all".
She started taking care of wounded and negelected animals in Egypt where her husband was sent to by his company. "Moving to Bhutan in 1997, after 5 years in Egypt, I have found again what I thought was not possible in a Buddhist country: misery, starvation and abuse of animals in general and dogs in particular, " she wrote.
Based in a remote area at first, she went on rescuing and treating dogs and cats in need and very often brought back home dogs from others parts of the country, found in the gutter or dying on the side of the road. Each of them was given the proper treatment, vaccinations and deworming.
Sterilisation was the next step before being ready for adoption(extremely difficult given the number of dogs around) or going back to their original surroundings when this was appropriate, i.e., safe, welcoming and offering subsistence means (restaurants, canteens, markets areas). " I transformed the house in a hospital.

As small and full as it was, lack of space was never a reason to leave a needy dog behind. Even after moving to the capital and a bigger house, there is never enough space for all the patients. The healthy dogs - sometimes up to 25 - are in the rearranged garage, sick dogs and cats in the kitchen, extremely sick animals in the 24-hour intensive care in the bedroom and monkeys in a house in the garden. The last guests of the garden house are three are macaques from the south, where they were captured young and kept chained to a pole, often beaten, trained to perform insane tricks. "They are learning to behave like monkeys again, which can be a bit of a problem if they come inside which they have to do in winter when the nights are to cold for them to stay outside. "

In addition to providing hospital and shelter, Marianne is trying to sterilise as many dog as possible. The main problem is surgery equipment and post-surgery care. "Indeed, female dogs have to be put on antibiotics for 5 days and need a place to recover safely from anaesthetic and surgery trauma. They often try to remove their stitches and, if left in the street, are often found agonising with their intestines out.

Marinanne tried to get the local and national authorities interested: "Because rescuing starving dogs, caring and curing their ailments and wounds, reducing their misery by an efficient family planning action is for me the only decent way to grasp a little of this serenity the country claims. But my efforts to raise concern for the dogšs problems (from the dogs point of view) and to create an association in Bhutan and a shelter in Thimphu have been blocked for reasons unknown to me."

Understanding and moral support is surprisingly rare. Up till now Marianne's husband has been paying for the private hospital his wife started. Private practice of veterinary medicine is illegal in Bhutan, therefore both the "hospital" and her "private house calls" for pets are free of charge. Pilou animal hospital obviously needs a lot of money to improve its care. Moments of Joy paid for surgery equipment.