Not a good day - Poisoning Planned!!

Its Friday, so I visited the Doi Kam Pack for a weekly feed. Saw & fed most of them and sat drinking coffee listening to the birds (Banded Bay Cuckoo & Jays) & watching Dam & Sonja play.

1. Sonja


2. Dam


3. Oscar


4. Taylor


5. Gina


6. Lady


7. Pat


8. Blackie


9. Butch


10. Mare (had the babies & teats now saggy)
    

Met up with Yu at Nakorn Payap International School to deliver to her some more soft toys for sale and then quickly returned to the shelter.

BAD NEWS! JJ climbed over the shelter gate this morning and is now on the run. He is wearing a plastic collar after his operation to stop him licking his wound. This collar is strapped on very well and is unlikely to just fall off. This makes his chances in the wild much harder and we can assume from his passive nature, he will not mix easily with any local packs of dogs, that would defend their territory and push him away.

Kh Yom & Paen were out on foot & motorbike searching for him most of the day and I drove in ever increasing circles looking too. Mary came to the shelter today, especially to see JJ and to her total surprise, he was not there to eat the bag of cooked meet and hot dogs she had brought along.

The reason Karin was not around today was that she was over at Maejo, Wat Vivek & Gasset Mai, doing her weekly feed of the dogs there. As I write this I received a call from her and I am still numb from what she has told me.

She visits Kachou market every week on her journey to Maejo and today she learned that in that area the local Orbitor (elected governor) is planning a street dog cull. Yes PLANNING ! It is said they have asked local residents to keep their own dogs in on a particular date and the local authorities will put poisoned meat down for the street dogs to eat, in order to kill the dogs.

Karin has spent much of her day talking with local people, talking with an animal friendly solicitor and trying to assess the numbers that are likely to be affected by this barbaric action.

Karin has been actively sterilising the dogs in this area for almost a year now and we are continuing to include dogs from this area every week in our program. Does this mean that despite sterilisation, these dogs will be killed? Do these people not understand that if you kill strays, more just move in to populate the same area, where as if you sterilise, the numbers reduce and there is not an influx of new dogs.

This is very bad news for Thailand, Chiang Mai, Dogs & Humanity