Sorry for break in service - We have been so busy!

Routine diary updates have not been high on my agenda recently as we have been so busy preparing for yesterdays Adoption Fair, as well as dealing with the non stop Care for Dogs rescue, sterilisations, medications & other doggy activity that is essential and our highest priority.

So.... Yesterday

The Adoption Fair at Chiang Mai Airport Plaza was a tremendous success and thank you to all the readers of this diary that were able to come along.

We manged to raise money on the day, in excess of 30,000 baht through donations & sales and achieved 9 adoptions with many other people expressing interest to adopt in the future. It was also an ideal opportunity for people to talk about their animal welfare issues with us, discuss doggy interests, offer their services as volunteers and enable us to communicate with the public about the work of Care for Dogs.

Airport Plaza, for those readers not familiar with Chiang Mai, is a Shopping Arcade / Mall / High Street under one roof and it is the biggest in the north of Thailand. We are not sure how many people visit Airport Plaza on a Saturday but from a rough estimate of flyers handed out at, it would be in excess of 8,000 to 10,000. This was big time exposure and as far as we know, a first for Airport Plaza. We are so thankful to the facilities management for allowing us to hold the event.

At first, there seemed to be some concern that live puppies were in their environment, foreigners setting up a stall that, when compared with adjacent big name retail outlets looked slightly shabby but above all, a very busy attraction.

The puppies were ferried in from the shelter in several shifts, ensuring that they were not over stressed and allow them to have a break. Those dumped in a sack at a temple 3 weeks ago were all adopted, so too were the poor things that people had taken to temples in Maejo, throwing them out of their cars and driving away.

We watched young children touch the puppies cautiously as many have never seen a puppy other than a Poodle or a Shih Tzu and these puppies were trusting and forgiving of people to let them hold them, wag their tails and hold hope for a brighter future. We saw families browsing the picture gallery display of available adoptions, rescue cases and a selection of happy adopting families, some showing paricular interest in Sherry the dumped Bull Terrier and we may even have some good news for the future of Paul who's legs are currently paralysed. (note the expression of hope).

Some individuals talked with me for a long time, about their individual efforts to care for the many dogs in the streets near their homes, sharing experiences of the complexities of dealing with homeless dogs and passing on particular details of cases that needed our assistance to deal with. Another useful contact made was a young trainee vet who wanted to discuss possibilities of assisting us and hopefully we can assist him to progress with his future.

The euphoria of yesterday is still with me as I right & I know the team of 20 volunteers will be feeling the same way.

Below are a couple of pics taken of the event, I will post more (from other cameras as I get them ah hum!)