We don't have the resourced to constantly monitor all the temples in the region so some of them receive less attention from us than others. Temple generally speaking are a hot spot for dog drop offs and you can count on there always being some work to be done. While we try to count on the monks to help us out we know that they have their own duties to attend to and can't always count on them to let us know if there are diseases, hunger, or unsterilized animals that have been dropped off.
So we do a check in every now and then and this week it was at Wat Nong Chik
The animals here don't know us as well as they do at other locations. Actually, they don’t really know us at all, so we have to be quite careful when we approach them. Always keep this in mind, readers. If you do not know a dog you need to be very careful with handling them, even a dog that is wagging its tail could be moments away from getting spooked by something and then biting you out of nowhere. Mostly I think it is a bad idea to approach stray animals but this is what I do for a living so I know how to do it without getting hurt. Food always helps, but I do this with chopsticks or with some utensil until the dog or cat starts to understand I am not a threat.
Cats just in general are easier to lure in with food and these little guys and girls were quite pleased to jump on the back of the truck to get a feed while I slyly checked them for any health issues they might have. I also checked their ears for the tell-tale signs of whether or not they have been sterilized.
After a while cats and dogs alike realized that I was there bearing gifts and I think we all had a bond of friendship by the time I left. I don't plan on them remembering me but we did have some good news from this visit in that there were no new dropoffs outside of one, which already had the marking on the ear indicating that it has been sterilized.
This is the mark in question by the way and this is the universal marking to indicate that an animal has already been sterilized. It should be rather evident with males but with the females this marking comes in really handy. We don't want to unnecessarily perform surgery on them only to find out that it has already been done.
If for whatever reason the dog that you encounter doesn't have this marking this could be the decision of the owner (previous or current) to not get this marking but the dog is friendly and you are able to view their belly, the female dog will have a slightly raised line about midway up her belly, where the surgery took place however long ago.
Getting back to the temple though, it was nice to see that the numbers had not blown up in our absence since it has been a good 4-6 months since we last checked in with this place. Wat Nong Chik is a bit more remote than other temples and therefore isn't much of a hot spot for middle-of-the-night abandonment.