The thing about dogs with no homes that makes them so difficult to care for is that they are normally either very shy when it comes to humans, or they have been intentionally intimidated by humans or even abused by them all of their lives.
This particular dog, named Momo, has been a bit of a staple at a local temple for quite some time. Like many dogs, Momo just appeared at the temple one day and we can only presume that it was dropped off by some villager who wanted it away from their property in some distant area. This is traditional in Thailand and widely used as a place to drop off unwanted or troublesome dogs. They get looked after at the temples to a certain degree and even though I would prefer that people look after the dogs themselves, this does make it easier for us to find and help them. It also decreases the chances of a dog simply being poisoned, which is unfortunately also a very widespread "tradition" in this country.
It was pointed out to us that MoMo had been spotted with a rather large wound on the back of her neck and this is the worst place for a dog to have a wound since they have no method of cleaning it. A back of the neck wound will quickly become infected and infested with parasites and more often than not, it will lead to the animal's slow and painful death.
So we jumped into action even though we were warned by the monks that Momo doesn't like people, and will do everything to get away from them. In all the time that the monks of known Momo, there have been very few times that any of them have been allowed to touch her. She is a jungle dog, and prefers to be left alone and away from humans. It's tragic, but that is just the way that some dogs are. Not all of them love people.
Since we are not familiar with Momo, we had to wear protective gear. Even though we come bearing delicious snacks and are there to help, not hurt her, she was still very apprehensive to let us approach her. We didn't have to get the "snap trap" involved thankfully, but it did still take us several hours to get her into a kennel for transportation to a clinic.
Chicken is a powerful thing when it comes to getting the attention of jungle dogs though, and in this situation we were able to get her into a kennel without any potential injury to her or to any of us.
The monk that she is most comfortable with was there to try to put her at ease as well.
It's not possible for us to know what caused the wound but it was pretty deep and already badly infected by the time we got to her. We were very careful with her and didn't try to treat her on the spot. We leave that to the professionals at the animal hospital
We suspect that this is a wound from either getting hit by a car or getting into a fight with another dog. It doesn't really matter either way but i'm leaning towards a fight with another dog since the rest of her seems to be unaffected by any other sort of injury.
This will get cleaned up and sewn up, and she will spend a few days at the vet for recovery. Then we will bring her back to the temple and put her right back where we found her. Since she spends most of her time in the jungle and prefers to not be around people unless she is hungry, we will let her do exactly that. Hopefully, whatever it is that caused this wound in the first place, doesn't come and strike her again.
This, unfortunately, is the best we can do in these situations. Momo would be a terrible candidate for adoption even if we did have a lot of adoption requests at the moment (we do not) because of her rather evident disdain for humans. Our own kennels are beyond full at the moment as well so that is not an option.
Since the monk was the one that alerted us to the fact that she needed help in the first place, I am quite certain that he will be more than willing to help us out with giving us updates on her condition from time-to-time as well.
It's all in a day's work and after looking back on it, I am just happy that it only took us an hour. It was about to start getting dark once we did get her kenneled and if it had taken just 20 minutes longer we likely would have had to call the search off.
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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