31 August 2007

Care for Dogs Adoption Fair III - Payap University Chiang Mai

Care for Dogs jumped at the invitation, to be part of the Payap University Chiang Mai National Science and Technology Exhibition, held within the halls of the Faculty of Science.

Students demonstrated many of the current project activities and companies such as Apple and local computer sales merchandisers were laying out their wears to attract the purses of the students parents.

A highlight of the afternoon, the period I was there, was a stage show performed by some young girls from a visiting school, cajoling elder students to take part in a bottle of liquid recognition quiz. It was all very loud, animated and plenty of fun, the audience enjoyed it immensely.

Sales at the Cfd stand raised money along with donations and many people showed great interest in the work of Care for Dogs.

Karin held adoption interviews with prospective adopters and despite not being quite the same type of venue Cfd had held before at Airport Plaza, there were many adoptions of young puppies, some that had recently been dumped & rescued from a temple in Maejo.

The event also marked the launch of the new Care for Dogs colours and Karin kindly gave all volunteers a free black Polo shirt, with pink stripes & details of Cfd embroidered on the pocket & the back.


The photo quality took a down turn, lighting was not too good for photo's and besides, Amandine has now returned to the USA (miss you so much x) and we were without her photographic skills.

25 August 2007

All problems can be overcome

Today I read several articles about blocks being put on visibility and accessibility of some blogs and sites. This knee jerked me into backing up the data, that's the pages / posts published, rather than just the way it looks & feels.


After a little searching I found an excellent utility to download all the posts & comments from your blog to your local PC and its so easy to use. Shame it doesn't save down the pics within the diary entries but I have those already, after all, I uploaded them in the first place! I will sleep easier tonight.

Hope Amandine doesn't mind me publishing a pic she sent me today.

The moral of this pic is that all problems can be overcome, you just need to sit & think about how to sort it out.

Gremlins or something more sinister

Today I have read about other blogs being surpressed and it is with some relief that mine is still up.

However.... The comments feed that my side bar uses has lost its content, despite the original comment being available to read within each post.

I have checked my recent design changes and can demonstrate on a ghost test version of my blog (something I maintain is essential before making any design changes) that the feed has been corrupt or lost to my blog. Other feeds to test blogs work fine.

Beware!

22 August 2007

Good-bye Benny


I enclose an email I received from Karin today, asking me to include it here. Indeed I think Karin's words bear testament to the reality of the short lives some of these poor creatures live and also the heart ache from the attachment that caring for homeless dogs can bring.

The first time I met Benny and his four siblings was in July last month. I had almost finished my temple tour at Wat Vivek, when the temple boys told me that another litter of puppies had been dumped – as it happens regularly at this and many other temples here. He showed me 5 lively brownish bundles –they were completely starving and went after three bowls of food as if they hadn’t eaten for days.

I took them into my car and drove back home. They were riddled with fleas and I tried to stop them from wandering around in the whole car, and I remember especially one popped up again and again and I fell for his cuteness right away – I called him Benny. Benny and his siblings first stayed at the shelter, were sprayed to get rid of their fleas, got a health check at the vet, food and love, their set of vaccinations, and the hairless spots from flea allergy slowly disappeared. Lady, our rescued senior Labrador, was very keen on getting into their enclosure and looked after them as a caring foster mom. Then the little ones developed a cough and I took them to our home. Partly because I didn’t want the cough to spread to other dogs, but partly also because I love to have foster puppies around between our own bunch of adult dogs – just can’t resist their charm and playfulness.

Two of them got adopted soon, and so Benny, Britta, and Tanya remained with us. The girls recovered quickly from their cough, but not Benny, though we changed the antibiotics every two weeks and gave him vitamins as well. But otherwise he didn’t have any other symptoms, looked healthy and playful, loved eating (as his growing little belly was evidence of), and of course playing with his sisters. He was a special friend of our 9-month old male Momo, at times just jumped on him, and the two were rolling around together. It was heartwarming to see how carefully big Momo played with his little friend. I have to confess, Benny was my special darling, and I always felt a bit guilty towards his sisters when I took him into my arms first to give him a long cuddle. I was very concerned that he would be given only to a real loving and caring home. Well, when you see the photo which Amandine took of him, you might understand.

As Bennys cough didn’t get better, I brought him for another vet check last week, and we changed the antibiotics one more time. We have currently family visiting and left for Bangkok last week. I knew Benny would be in good care with dog-loving Amandine and our valuable house-keeper Khun Kulab. Yesterday Kh. Kulab called me and told me that Benny had lost appetite and had diarrhea for the first time and that his body felt hot. I asked her to arrange a vet visit and Dr. Thanakrit recommended to separate him from our other dogs and prescribed new medicine. Benny stayed at our bathroom where bedding has been prepared for him, and when Kulab saw him yesterday evening he still looked o.k. and even tried to get out of the room to see his sisters.

This morning I got a phone call from Amandine. She told me that Kulab had found Benny this morning dead in the bathroom, he must have died several hours before.

Benny will be buried today in our garden next to the grave of my eldest dog Dao and I asked Amandine to say fare-well from me with a frangipani flower.

Rest in peace, little friend, I dearly miss you.
Karin

21 August 2007

Nakorn Payap - Community & Temple Aid Program

Today Amandine & I visited Nakorn Payap International School (NIS), as Kh Yu & Ms Elissa are in the initial stages of setting up a Community & Temple Aid Program and wanted us to present information to a gathering of interested project volunteer students on the work we do.

The project will essentially help the community effectively reduce the numbers of homeless dogs, improve the health of the current ones living within the grounds of a temple.

This wonderful initiative will enable the participants from the school to arrange sterilisation, vaccinate, treat mange & other illness, as well as improve the general level of health of the residents at a temple along with regular feeding.

Karin, Amandine & I have recently been visiting a particular temple we have in mind for this project, where there are over 30 dogs with many needing sterilisation and some interesting skin problem to deal with too. The monks and staff in the offices there, know the dogs by name and they are generally sociable ( the monks & staff too ). Currently there are some young pups riddled with ticks and by the look of the bloated tummies of some of the adults, a few more are on their way.

This location will be an ideal opportunity for the NIS group to get involved and help the community with such a valuable contribution of effort and impact on the future numbers of homeless dogs in the vicinity.

Last week we showed the temple to Kh Yu & Ms Elissa and they immediately saw the potential.
Today Amandine & I think they have managed to convince their volunteer colleagues to give this initiative their commitment and become the first school in Chiang Mai to start such a worthwhile activity.

More photo's by Amandine

By popular demand, some more photo's taken by Care for Dogs specialist photographer. "Specialist" because she seems to have the eye for the nicest of shots and captures so much emotion in her lense.



Amandine has been so click happy whilst here, there are so many more pics to come.

19 August 2007

Care for Dogs - Chiang Mai Thailand - Alive & Well

Some readers of this blog have questioned why there have been so few entries over recent weeks and I have been asked to clarify the situation in respect of Care for Dogs, in order to avoid any negative speculation. Indeed I have been considering for some time, what exactly to say.

When I started volunteering with Care for Dogs 12 months ago, I put my heart into the activities and found myself devoting more and more time every week to helping dogs as part of the work of the group. This I was happy about, as after all I am retired and you can only dead head roses so much! I have a tremendous enthusiasm for whatever I put my mind to and I can never take a half hearted approach to things.

What I had not envisaged was the exposure I would get to the negative issues within society surrounding animal welfare, the traumatic scenes of dogs in distress and the helplessness one feels when faced with so much needing to be done by so few. Regular visits to vets with a growing family of dogs that I was acquiring (despite living at the shelter, in temples or on streets, they are all part of my family now) and experiencing their pain & suffering, started to take its toll on my personal life and relationships. I discussed these emotions with various folks over time and established that there is a recognized condition termed as “Burn out” and if you follow this link you can read some other volunteer views on the same issue.

About 6 months ago, I realised my time would come to step back and about 2 months ago, I made the decision to time it after a 12 month volunteer period. No time would ever be right to make such a move, so softening the blow or impact this would have on the group was a real concern to me. Feelings of guilt, failure, weakness & disappointment flood in daily as I feel I have betrayed the many dogs that await my help and let down the group and hampered their ability to achieve their goals & objectives. But we have talked about it and their continued activities is evidence of their strength and ability to deal with the issues I could not.

Care for Dogs has existed for well over a year now and the short period of 12 months I have been associated with the group, has been a tremendous experience for me and provided many opportunities to assist dogs in ways that before, I would not have known how to help. I have learned so much and still encourage people to get involved with helping dogs in any way they can.

The work of Care for Dogs continues unabated, still providing medical care and arranging sterilizations for as many dogs that funds will support. Equally, rescues of injured or sick and dogs in danger, are still ongoing, new homes are being found for homeless dogs and Karin is capably continuing to drive the groups work with the assistance of other volunteers.

‘Ally’s Care for Dogs Diary’ started 12 months ago and has grown to demonstrate many issues surrounding the welfare of dogs in Chiang Mai and sometimes other issues too. It has become a daily interest for some people and to the volunteers, a source of reference, such as “when exactly was it that we picked that dog up?” and a means to mass communicate issues that folks need to know about. As some will have recognized, it has also served as therapy for me, to express my feelings and share with others, what has upset me. I do intend to continue with updates from time to time, drawing attention to the work of Care for Dogs & trying to encourage folks to contribute funds to their work and including my ongoing activities of helping dogs where ever I am, albeit not in the guise of Care for Dogs volunteer. You see, when you start working with dogs, you can never stop. The more you look, the more you see.



So, please keep popping in from time to time & read up on the updates. But whatever you think, please do not feel that Care for Dogs is less active than before.

8 August 2007

Blow darting TvT cases

This entry covers a story about 2 dogs that live at a temple / school and both have severe TvT (Transmissible Venereal Tumour).

Amandine & I visited the location twice to blow dart the dogs. They both hang out in the school dinner hall, sleeping under the tables and getting regular meals from both staff & children.

The male, "Carrefour", has a massive tumour on his penis and constantly drips blood. In fact, by the time we arrived back at the shelter, there was a puddle of blood in the back of the truck.


The female, well her back end is a mess. Yes that is the dart in Amandine's pocket, dangerous woman!


Amandine was busy at the school with her camera and the children, as ever, were willing models and extremely interested in the results.

The 2 dogs are now at the shelter and receiving weekly chemotherapy.

1 August 2007

Stolen Golden Retriever - Chiang Mai, Thailand


This week a handsome Golden Retriever called Momo, went missing from near his home in the Wat Ched Yod area of Chiang Mai, Thailand.

His family are beside themselves, missing him so much and fear the worst, that someone has taken him for sale or even to the meat market.

If you are in Chiang Mai and see a dog similar to him for sale, please contact us so we can verify that its not Momo.

UPDATE The family have also reported Momo as missing at the following site:

http://dogdetective.com/dogs/971350.html

UK people listen to animal welfare message

Animal cruelty convictions down

German shepherd named "Blade" suffered neglect for two months

Convictions for animal cruelty in the UK fell by 20% last year, according to new figures released by the RSPCA.

The charity said the statistics showed people were beginning to listen to its animal welfare message.

It also said new legislation introduced in April was enabling it to intervene earlier to prevent acts of cruelty.

The RSPCA review of 2006 did, however, include "shocking" examples of cruelty including a starving dog forced to eat dead companions to survive.


The charity's 2006 cruelty statistics showed overall that, although there were more complaints investigated, there were fewer convictions than the previous year. [Read more...]