Doggy Tales from Thailand

Photo left: Feeding the dog at night. His hair has grown back and he looks wonderful!

Photo right: A well behaving and well fed street dog  waiting at a fashionable distance at a local food vendor to feed him some scraps. Street dogs in general always are on friendly terms with local vendors and local Thai people.
On the background we can see a big Thai Buddist temple, which houses a dozen or so street dogs. Neighbors of the temple daily feed the dogs with dog food or left overs. 

(See also blog post “My Adopted Thai Park Dogs” Wednesday 5 November 2014)

I didn’t see both of my adopted park dogs for about two weeks, fearing the worst. Then, to my surprise, one night I saw one dog again, wagging his tail and running to me.

Once a bold dog covered with itches, he is now covered with soft and beautiful hair, except for one patch on his back.

The story of this dog? When I found him months ago, on the street, he was bold and dizzy looking and with a big dent in his head, and skinny. Obviously he had suffered a big accident and struggled to recover from it. A little food and a bit of attention every two days was just what he needed to pull through.

And now? He made friends with the local vendors who give him leftovers, and with other local people. His home is the street and he knows his way around.

I am never tired to repeat it. In the west this dog would have been lovingly euthanized (what a brutal and cynical euphemism) by animal lovers. In the west animal lovers and Aniaml Righst organizations would verbally attack people who would not euthanize such a dog. Euthanize is big in the west. It is the liberal way of showing how much you care, hah!

Here, in Thailand, dogs are allowed to live their life on the streets. Allowed, and taken care for. In the west, dogs are not allowed to live free on the streets, instead animal lovers with the best intentions build prisons for them, freedom, the most precious thing of any living being, is brutally taken away from them.

I know a lot of vegans and AR people in the west have a very distorted image of Asia. Say “dogs” and they have visions of Asian people eating roasted dog for breakfast. Some westerners with good intentions even come to Thailand and build western style dog shelters and are blind to the Thai system of taking care for street dogs, which doesn’t involve locking them up. (insert big sigh).

So one dog is back and safe, but unfortunately, my other adopted park dog still is missing. L