It is just heartbreaking to see this. We put so much time, effort, and money into making sure that the dogs have as good a life as possible and also become as little a nuisance for the community as possible and after all of our efforts and achieving 100% sterilization at the Khao Khen Temple. As difficult as it is for me to imagine the type of person that doesn't help dogs in need I find it even more unfathomable that someone out there would intentionally poison some of them.
We received a call from one of our resident helper monks informing us that several dogs had died and that many more seem very sick. We rushed to the scene with all of the meds and testing equipment that we have. We didn't know what sort of outbreak this could be because we have treated all of the dogs at this rather small temple. There were also no new dogs that we are aware of and even if there was diseases really don't travel through a pack this quickly.
After much testing and administration of IV drips we discovered that this wasn't an illness at all: These dogs had been intentionally poisoned by someone - a despicable person that not only would intentionally kill animals, but would also do it at a holy place like the temple grounds.
In the end we lost 5 dogs at the temple and we were actually relieved that we were able to save as many of the sick ones as we did. When a dog gets poisoned the prognosis for survival normally is not very good. If enough of the poison gets into their system there normally isn't anything that we, or anyone else can do to reverse it. It is the same process that happens with other poisoning methods such as is used with rats, it is an irreversible shutdown of the internal organs. I can only guess that we were fortunate that some of the dogs didn't eat very much of the poison and therefore had a much better chance of survival.
To the ones that made it, we spent the days monitoring them and comforting them as well as providing them with ample amounts of treats.
This is just so disappointing that someone would do something like this. This is reasonably common in Thailand and the surrounding SE Asian countries but normally a temple would be considered off-limits to this sort of thing. The dogs that do get regularly poisoned are normally roaming nuisances in farming communities and they end up getting killed because they pack is raiding garbage areas and making a mess of it. In other situations they kill chickens and the farmers see no other choice. I will never agree with this method of "pest control" especially since we have made it rather well-known that they can call us to help with these problems.
In our temple poisoning situation nobody said anything to anyone. Someone just took it upon themselves to poison the dogs, presumably by throwing meat over the wall that was filled with rat-poison. This is the common method used by dog killers here.
If you suspect that your dog has been poisoned you don't have a lot of time to do something about it but just do you know a solution of hydrogen peroxide and water will induce vomiting in most dogs. You have to be aware that the poisoning has actually happened for this method to be effective though. In our case we had no idea until several of the dogs were already dead or dying. it is just so tragic that someone would do this and it makes a lot of our work seem in vain.
For now we are just going to focus on the dogs that remain and the monks will make inquiries around the local community about if anyone can think of any reason why someone would do this. I hadn't really thought of the dogs here, that rarely leave the temple complex, of being a nuisance to anyone in the local community. I'm at a loss for words and am extremely angry right now. We worked so hard to get to this point only to have some evil person uncaringly kill with no fear of consequences.
Regardless of this massively tragic setback, we will carry on doing what we have been doing. I hope that the person who did this has great regrets and believes in karma, because they have a lot of bad karma heading their way.
If you would like to see how you can help out or simply spread the word, please visit our website at
http://krabianimalwelfare.org
Krabi Animal Welfare is a charity run entirely by volunteers and are a registered non-profit organization in Thailand and the U.K.. We aim to relieve the pain and suffering of dogs and cats within Krabi Province.
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