No matter where you go in Krabi you are bound to encounter homeless dogs. It's just from generations of people being rather irresponsible with the treatment of these animals and the complete lack of management of their populations.
It isn't often, but every now and then we get a call about some "jungle dogs" that roam the countryside that don't have anywhere domesticated to call a home and are in need of medical help.
We still answer the call, but our approach is completely different.
Dogs that live their entire lives away from humans are a different sort of animal than most people who have spent time around dogs are probably familiar with. They look the same as house dogs or even homeless dogs that wander the streets, but they also have the potential to be far more dangerous.
When we get the call from some farmer or land owner that there is a pack and some of the dogs appear to be in bad shape, we have to break out the big guns to help them including all terrain vehicles and custom-made traps to capture the animals in question.
One big problem that we encounter is that if there are a lot of dogs in the pack, we tend to capture ones that we weren't actually trying to catch in the first place.
When you first see this guy, he probably appears like your run of the mill belly-scrath-loving pup that can't wait to cuddle with you. But this is far from the case.
These dogs that we encountered well away from a road on a rubber plantation were near feral and they were, how to say, a bit on the "bitey" side. We do all that we can to not use tranquilizer darts on them, but it is normally very necessary for us to use some sort of sedative. Our go to is some sort of sedative powder mixed with meat.
We have bite-proof gloves that we move the cage with and then we give a special "sleepy treat" and then and only then do we move in to provide an analysis of the situation and provide treatment.
It is a good thing that we did too because one of the dogs had a cancerous growth on its belly that was no doubt killing him. I have intentionally not pictured it because it was pretty gruesome.
Treating this kind of animal is substantially more difficult than your run of the mill housedog, because he is going to be aggressive every encounter that we have with him. The vets are very good at dealing with this and the only time we are involved in during transport to and from the clinic. It seems more like something out of Jurassic Park than a dog show when we do this.
We feel for the dog because it is absolutely terrified the entire time and lashes out at us at all times. This will not stop us from helping him though.
We try to keep the dogs at east as much as possible with treats and plenty of water and here is the last image we have after returning the dog to where we found him. He was extremely ready when we finally opened up the trap in his home territory. He bounded out of that cage like a greyhound in a dog race and only once he got to the top of a hill did he turn around to make sure he wasn't being followed. Well, that is likely what he was doing anyway but we like to think of it as his turn around to say "thank you."
In this particular remote area we discovered only about a half-dozen dogs and it was so much of a pain to get just this one that we are going to hold off on sterilizing this bunch for now. According to the people that work this land, they do not cause any problems for the farmers but also never approach any of them.
So this is an acceptable amount of stray dogs for this particular area. If it does get out of control though, we will be back!
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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