I love all the dogs that we look after at the Tiger Cave Temple but one of my favorites is the one that I named "Panther." The monks don't typically name the dogs that end up here unless there is something particularly special about them and to me Panther is definitely special.
Almost all of the dogs at the Tiger Cave are happy to see us when we turn up and I like to believe that this isn't just because we always come with snacks and food, I think they like all the pets and belly rubs that we give them as well. As a street dog, stray, or as they call them in Thailand, "Soi Dog," you don't get a lot of affection because people are afraid of them. In many areas the dogs give the public very good reasons to be afraid and a lot of people are bitten by some packs of dogs every year. The dogs at the Tiger Cave are really docile in comparison because they never have to compete for food.
Panther seems to get more attention than most of the dogs at the Tiger Cave Temple because of the fact that one day a long time ago he decided to follow a monk all the way up to the top of the stairs at the Temple to the Buddha's footprint that is up there. This is a very tough journey for people that are adult human sized so for a dog to go all the way up these very tricky steps to the top is impressive to me. Some of the steps are nearly as tall as Panther so it must have been tough for him to make it all the way up there.
This probably wouldn't be such a big deal if there was a few dozen or even a few hundred of them but in this case this winding and uneven pathway goes nearly 1300 steps. Panther decided one day that he was just going to hang out up at the top because there is water up there and when the monks started to notice that he wasn't coming back down, they brought food up to him on a regular basis. He basically had the place to himself because the dozens of other animals that call the Tiger Cave Temple home, very few of them, including the natural inhabitant monkeys, ever go all the way to the top.
Because of his very friendly demeanor he also get plenty of attention from the hundreds of people per day that make the pilgrimage to the top. He rarely comes back down to the bottom in the years that I have been coming here and I do not have time to make the grueling journey up top to see him so I just relied in information from the monks that make the journey daily for cleaning to check in on him. They said he was fine and he mostly just sits in the shade and greets the people that make it to the top when they arrive. "He is very popular" they say to me and I don't find this difficult to believe.
I was delighted when I arrived at the Temple the other day to see that he was down on the bottom. This is very rare and according to the monks that live here I am told that every now and then he will decide to follow one of the monks or even one of the visitors all the way back to the bottom. He will stick around for a few hours but rarely an entire day before he makes his way back up to the top. He has been living up there in near complete isolation for years now and he is a bit of a celebrity.
Even the monkeys that he has to pass on his way to the top are accustomed to him being around and they leave him alone. They don't even seem to be bothered by his presence at all. Panther is a very kind creature, so he doesn't give the monkeys any reason to fear him.
It was really nice to see him on the bottom though and I was really happy that he recognized me. It will likely be many moons before I see him again because I asked the monk to call me if he noticed Panther heading back up the mountain and it wasn't even a full hour after I left before he began the long journey back to his home at the top of the mountain.
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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