Max lives to tell a tale - He will not be eaten today

Care for Dogs receives some amazing calls from people in & around Chiang Mai and today we received just one of those.

Wat Suan Dok is a famous temple which is quite a busy place because of the number of monks coming & going to studies and people attending various courses there too.

We have previously been involved with some of the dogs here, for sterilisation, treating their Mange and also finding homes for puppies born there, getting them adopted out of the temple life.

It transpires that 3 days ago, some people came to the temple to take dogs away and either sell or eat them themselves. Yes, your eyes do not deceive you, people wanted to catch dogs in order to eat them. Apparently black coated dogs are considered more appealing and if the people who catch them do not eat them, then they are able to sell the dog for consumption at a few places, therefore giving them an income.

On this occasion they targeted Max, who is an aged black Labrador look-a-like and they beat him with a stick but people in the vicinity who work in the offices at the temple, stopped the raiders taking Max away.

Since then, Max has hardly moved from the front door of the offices and when he did move, it was obvious he was in tremendous pain, keeping his left front leg raised at all times and hopping on 3 legs. After a couple of days, the staff there decided to call Care for Dogs to take him to a place of safety and hopefully deal with the injured leg.

We were greeted at the temple by Kh Supatra who is another one of those wonderful people we come across in our work, that not only has many dogs of her own but also looks after several dogs on the streets near her home. This lady has 8 of her own & looks after another 13 on the street, making sure that they get at least one meal a day.

We found Max tucked underneath a large wooden Sala, used by the monks to shade from the sun. Max gave us a knowing look and it wasn't long before he was up and away on his 3 legs to a wide open space away from any corner.

Eventually we managed to sedate him with a blow dart and take him to the veterinarian for assessment and hopefully treatment. The X-ray immediately highlighted Max's pain and predicament. His radius had been completely dislocated from the humerus. In human terms this would be the same as the forearm dislocating at the elbow from the upper arm.

After much discussion about the correct approach to Max's treatment, it was decided to operate and pin the 2 bones in place and then with some timely physiotherapy, perhaps he will be able to use the leg again.

Tomorrow we will collect him from the surgery and keep him for his aftercare at the shelter in Hang Dong and do what we can to repair this guys trust in humans at the same time.

Here are a couple of photos taken of Max a year ago, looking a little more confident and happy with his temple life.




Below is a slide show of photo's taken at the temple a year ago.

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