During the day I had been at the adoption fair at Airport Plaza and Klaus had left home with Benji around 05.00 p.m. to pick me up. At this time all was still fine. Bailey, our 3 year old rescued Golden Retriever, was running and playing happily with our other dogs. 2 ½ hours later we came home. I went upstairs and heard Klaus shortly afterwards calling me. From the sound of his voice I realized that something terrible must have happened and I rushed down. He said that he had found Bailey lying dead in our workshop. I hurried and ran over to the room, shocked and somehow hoping that this was all a huge misunderstanding that just couldn’t be true. Bailey was lying there as if he would sleep, but when I touched his body I realized that it had stiffened already and the cruel reality sank in that there was to more hope to rescue our beloved dog.

As Bailey had been healthy, active, and cheerful as always it was very unlikely that he would have died by a disease. We were wondering if a snake might have bitten him. The next day we had an autopsy done and the vet told us afterwards that Bailey hadn’t died through a snake bite but through poising due to the lesions in his stomach that the poison had caused. He suspected a herbicide. There are not herbicides reachable in our garden or house, so someone must have thrown poisoned food into our garden.

We have no idea who has been behind this merciless act. Could it be someone who has been annoyed by barking from our home or the shelter? We will report the killing of Bailey to the police, but it will be very hard to find out who is behind it. And we also worry about the safety of our other and the shelter dogs.

Bailey has come to our shelter 2 years ago. His previous owner wanted to put him to sleep after an accident. as he didn’t wanted to invest more money and anyway didn’t have time for him. Bailey had various fractures and an inserted pin that was too long had caused a severe infection. In the beginning we were not sure if Bailey would make it. We had him re- operated, he got an external fixation, the infection got under control and step by step he made a full recovery. We had fostered Bailey through this process, and the inevitable happened, we fall in love with his friendly, cheerful and very affectionate nature and decided to adopt him.

Bailey had brought a lot of love and sunshine into our home. He loved human company and followed us everywhere, always keen on a cuddle. He loved to play ball with Benji and endured with great patience Benjis clumsy touches. I had thought that both would be best friends one day but this wasn’t meant to be.

He was the only of our dogs who gave us “bear hugs” when we came home.

Bailey, we miss you!

Karin, Klaus & Benji

Many of you may already know that His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand has adopted many handicapped, stray and abandoned animals. His Majesty is well known for his concern for the welfare of animals and wrote a story of one such adopted street dog, his beloved Tong Daeng. This has been published in a best-selling book, the proceeds of which are helping to fund several royal animal welfare projects.

Tong Daeng (‘copper’), a tan and white dog rather like a Basenji, along with a number of other royal dogs is a blood donor for the Kasetsart University Animal Hospital. The King’s initiatives in promoting animal welfare have helped stimulate local people to care more for their dogs.

Along with other members of the Thai royal family, King Bhumibol Adulyadej has a number of pet dogs, but this pet in particular (Tong Daeng) has a heart-warming story attached.

In 1998, a stray Bangkok dog was taken in by a medical centre in Bangkok and had a litter of puppies. After the Thai king visited the medical centre he adopted a dog from the litter. That dog was called ‘Tong Daeng’ (’Copper’) and was soon to become a favourite of the Thai monarch and would go on to have her own litter of puppies which would become part of the royal household.

Tong Daeng is praised by the king for her loyalty, manners and intelligence and he once said, ‘Tong Daeng is a common dog who is uncommon’. When the king left hospital after a minor operation in 2002 he wore a t-shirt with the image of Tong Daeng and her puppies. This sparked a fashion craze in Thailand with the public buying up Tong Daeng t-shirts as soon as they went on sale. Similar scenes followed when the Thai king published his book, ‘The Story of Tong Daeng’. Apparently, the fact that His Majesty adopted a humble stray puppy as the royal pet dog touched the heart of the general public so much that it became an instant best-seller in 2002. This was followed up with an animated version of the book in 2004 which became even more popular than the original version and numerous reprints were required to satisfy demand. The book itself stressed how Tong Daeng despite coming from a lowly background was still intelligent, respectful and well-behaved. The book struck a chord with many ordinary Thais, but some media analysts also interpreted a message aimed at certain politicians in Thailand.

In the book, His Majesty praises Tong Daeng’s traits of gratefulness and respectfulness as “different from many others who, after having become important personalities, might treat with contempt someone of lower status who, in fact, should be the object of gratitude.”

By adopting Tong Daeng, a puppy born in the street near the Medical Development Centre Clinic in Bangkok’s Wang Thonglang district, His Majesty showed that with a little help, stray dogs can be taught all the commendable qualities one could expect from any pet.

“Most adopted stray dogs are usually humble and exceptionally faithful to their owners, as if they are grateful for the kindness they receive. Moreover, they are not inferior to imported dogs in intelligence. Some are attractive or have a distinctive smart look, like Tong Daeng,” he wrote.

The King added that if the authorities helped, more people would be willing to adopt the numerous strays roaming the country.

Tong Daeng has also featured on a limited edition set of stamps and her own DVD. Profits from the Tong Daeng books and DVDs have gone to the king’s charities.

What a great man, great comments & great example!

The event was held at Cape Racha Hotel in Sriracha, hosted by the owner of the hotel & President of the Thai Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals TSPCA Tirapongse Pangsrivongse (Khun Lek) who made a very positive and motivating address to the gathering, opening up the discussions & presentations from the 90+ people gathered at the event.

The apparent ‘green light’ of the draft Animal Welfare Bill being approved by a Thai Cabinet meeting in March 2009, was a major reason for the buoyancy of the seminar and reinforced by the various presentations made by the participants, demonstrating their commitments to improve the welfare of animals in their areas of activity.

Care for Dogs presentation used the following PowerPoint show to highlight some of the activities in Chiang Mai.

Sorry about the proportions being affected by googledocs.

You can also watch the slide show widescreen here …

We can but hope the draft bill will be positively received by the Office of the Council of State before moving on to Parliament.

Right now, my daily life from Monday to Friday is a constant roller coaster of emotions, faced with chaos which can arise out of the blue with just a seconds warning followed by what can only be termed as madness and the whole scenario disappearing into a black hole and leaving you feeling drained and wondering what you were doing just 2 minutes before.

I took on the role of shelter manager with open eyes & arms as I feel compelled to do it, I know the entire scope of the work and I have now fully recovered from what forced me away in 2007, to run & hide from exactly the issues that today keep me totally occupied.

As a human being that feels compassion for animals, I look at every brown, black, cream or whatever other colour two, three & four legged animal and think about what they must feel. I see their faces and their eyes. I feel their sadness, their fear and I understand their desire for food, security and companionship. I see & feel their wounds and their itchy tick & flea infested coats, I feel their dry and flaking scabs, the nuisance of the flies bothering them and the constant movement in their ears & eyes helping them avoid the next bike, car or human that might just harm them if they cross their path.

The more you see, the more you find and the more you find, the more you get drawn to do something.

In 2006, that’s exactly how I felt. I was drawn in, intrigued by the amount of help I could offer and excited by the never ending flow of cases needing help. I volunteered without bounds or fear, without a feeling of exhaustion or looming defeat. I helped Care for Dogs as much as I could in any way I could. I learned so much about this new found passion and grew to become wise to so many issues surrounding the lives of dogs within civilisation as we know it.

I became interested in medical issues and yearned to visit vets with problems to see the results that would follow because I knew there were dogs I could help and I knew there were vets that could help me.

When I visited any area within Thailand, I would seek out the dogs and witness their plight. During days when I was not actively involved with Care for Dogs work, I started to generate interests in doing my own projects, visiting my dogs, my areas and becoming the help they needed as it became apparent from my familiarity that no one else was. I was their life line, nobody else was there doing what I was doing. I would feel drawn to do something to help any dog I saw. I would visit a local temple and become familiar with all the dogs there & visit them 2 – 3 days a week during the cold months to give them extra food. People visited the temple and ignored the dogs, some even abused them and seeing the dogs there already, chose to dump theirs too.

I would look at people with toy pet dogs and despise them and I would look at the food being wasted at restaurant tables and pity the urchins raiding the bins at night. The menace in society was not four legged but the humans I was amongst.

Yes, this was Obsession.

I live in Chiang Mai with my Thai partner & her family who constantly demonstrate the many cultural differences to western society that I and the many foreigners living here need to come to terms with. I consider myself quite well adjusted now but that took about 5 years.

However in 2006 / 2007 I was on the cusp of a change I was struggling to accept. At that time, I found myself starting to hate people around me that were causing me so much pain – who were causing so many dogs pain. I became increasingly aware that my daily activity of helping dogs was never going to make that much of a difference on the masses of dogs suffering at the hands of humans and became increasingly unsettled living amongst the very people who culturally purveyed the issues I was fighting. Thai society in general, has a different set of priorities and values to those I was previously accustomed to.

The Care for Dogs shelter became a sad place for me to visit, with the same faces at the gate every day with very little movement of dogs being adopted compared to the increasing numbers entering the facility plus a constant flow of injured or threatened dogs into the shelter, I became very depressed. I started to feel the desperate emotion of failure and no matter what I did, I felt that sinking feeling, the boat in the middle of an ocean with a whirlpool sucking me in.

Dumping dogs at temples, people ignoring sickness & injury, others neglecting & abusing trusting helpless souls and premeditated killing of dogs and some being eaten, all became too much for me and I painfully extracted myself from the work I was doing and turned my back on the very cause I was fighting. I was overwhelmed by the enormity of the problem, the stress that grew from fighting a ‘never ending battle’ became too much for me.

This level of obsession is a very personal and individual commitment to the fight, the cause and the desperation. Your social circle changes, you distance yourself from those that don’t share your views. Every conversation hinges on the recent dog issue, with phone and email full of text & discussions about rights & wrongs.

During 2007 I started to write my daily memoirs of my Caring for Dogs activity in a very simple blog site which initially acted as therapy for me, recording and sharing my experiences but this ultimately became the platform to announce my inability and failure to continue.

Guilt, defeat, shame and confusion poured out of ever y pore of my tired body. I was not only letting down the people I shared my passion with, the volunteers and supporters of Care for Dogs but the thousands of dogs I knew still needed my help.

In the spring of 2008 after a 6 month break from activity with Care for Dogs, I found I could come to terms with most of the issues I had previously struggled with. I had recharged my energy, re-balanced myself in society and no longer woke every morning feeling the stress related to the desperation of the never ending flow of dogs needing help. Move over, I had realized that I was the one who had caused myself the stress.

I had previously entered into the volunteer environment with wide open arms thinking that I was invincible, super woman and not one to fail. I could now I recognise the value of setting myself boundaries and rules to follow. Making rules for myself to adhere to and actively conscious of being drawn in and over committed.

After working up the new website and developing enthusiasm of other volunteers to contribute, I identified what I wanted to contribute to Care for Dogs in terms of commitment. 1 day a week, doing vet runs and the occasional visit to the shelter capturing information to populate my regular updates of the website.

Well as readers of the website will know, that changed in September 2009 when I started to work full time as Shelter Manager. This decision didn’t come easily. I fought with myself about the level of commitment I was about to offer and came to terms with how I would approach this new phase of my activity. I would maintain my boundaries and rules.

Because I now knew why I failed before, I made people around me aware of how different I would be this time round. I told folks that the hard exterior of the steam train ploughing through the work was there for the sole reason of keeping me focused and enabling me to not be consumed by the emotion of the activity and reduce the risk of emotional exhaustion.

I want to help as much as I can but I know I cannot help every dog and I know that if I do not manage my level of stress I will not be able to help any dogs at all.

Things didn’t go quite to plan initially, I suffered a little but after a couple of months I can safely say that I have identified most of the issues that give me problems and actively work to ensure the causal factors do not over influence the balance I can manage.

I am constantly apologizing for being blunt & straight but that’s the armour doing its job and within I am managing to continue without pain. I am now fairly comfortable in my new role and see many projects within the scope of the job which will enable me to drive the facility to become even more effective.

I do get serious about my work, I get wound up by people asking silly questions and trying to complicate things in an already difficult environment but on the whole, I know that I will not keel over or walk away from this because of my emotions for the dogs or the people. That’s the main difference between the last time & this period of involvement. This time round I am aware that I need to speak my mind and verbalise my concerns and not just consume the pressures and emotions that build when dealing with a difficult situation.

This post is really all about ‘Burn out’ & the reason so many volunteers across the world have difficulty in consistently delivering their assistance to a cause they urge to follow.

Whilst I have pondered writing about this subject , I have witnessed various people I come into contact with, reach a point where they find themselves struggling to juggle their resource, their focus and their commitment. For the past year I have watched a couple of individuals take so much additional activity under their umbrella and constantly witnessed their inability to recognize the necessity to limit and adjust with the caution advised to them by their friends and colleagues. The inevitable burn will be a loss to everyone, themselves, their associated friends but most of all the cause they were trying to help, the animals that need our help.

This post is not just about me, it’s about people around me, people who do what I do, it’s about the subject of ‘Burn Out’ and the effect of personal commitment upon emotional stability. Take a look at this link to read more about the subject and hopefully benefit in some way from the experiences of others.

Please be warned, if you are involved with animal rescue in any way, you are at risk of burn out, wrecking your personal life and losing touch with reality and people around you.

Thank you for taking time to read this lengthy post.

Grib came to Care for Dogs in April this year as the first employed Shelter Coordinator and taking on the role with both hands, it was evident she was suited to the subject matter but suffered badly from the stress caused by such a difficult & demanding position.

Although it has only been a short time, the impact she has made on the shelter staff and the routine operation of the facility is commendable and she will be sorely missed by all of us.

We said our goodbyes at Kao Mao Kao Fang, who advertise themselves as a restaurant set in an imaginary jungle.

Personally I think the loo’s here are a ‘must see’ and the place as a whole has different attractive qualities day and night. With a new coffee shop opened inside, it is very appealing as a meeting point.

The food ain’t that bad either but the ambiance is what people go here for. It’s very relaxing.

Photo’s tell a story, here are some of the faces as we lost Grib in the jungle.

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

When my wife heard the story she immediately decided that Chino would come to our place.

What we got was a stressed out dog who instantly laid down on the blanket we had prepared for her. She didn’t get up and was growling and barking to our other dogs; not really necessary because they completely ignored her.

I bribed her by feeding little bits of liver every morning and evening, which worked because she liked it and within a week I could incidentally touch her nose.

A little while later she got up and, apparently quite relaxed she made a walk around the garden. The tension was gone and Chino began to discover that no one wanted to steal her place and that there were many other beautiful spots where she could walk, sit or sleep and, most important undisturbed.

She began to discover that we were around quite a lot and that felt safe for her. After two months she came, although a bit insecure to the gate when we would come home but pretty soon she turned out to be one of the most passionate ones who needed a lot of cuddling and a long chat after which she would then playfully run away as a silly old girl.

She found out she thoroughly enjoyed a belly rub.

Chino was home. This was her home!

Three weeks ago her health went downhill and she had some scary attacks that looked epileptic. We took her to the vet. (see this story)

After the third attack she seemed totally confused and was panting heavily. She was looking for something; she tried to get between two wooden poles on the veranda or tried to get her head between two boxes. It very much looked like she tried to find “a way out”.

We left her outside because it seemed that was what she wanted and also the other dogs got nervous too.

Sometime during the night my wife said that Chino was gone. We haven’t seen her anymore.

She probably found a peaceful place to die somewhere in the surrounding woods. She always has been a stubborn girl that liked to do things her way.

Rest in peace, Sweetie. We’ll miss you.

Idea
Care for Dogs is an animal welfare organisation concentrating its efforts in and around Chiang Mai, Thailand and is completely based on donations. Funds are sought in Thailand but is not very sucessful and certainly not enough to finance all our activities. Therefor CfD looks for support from organisations and generous individuals and dog lovers from other parts of the global village.

I live in the quarter of that village called Germany, house Offenburg and in my house there is an annual pedigree exhibition. So the idea came up using this event as a platform to promote Care for Dogs under the slogan “animale welfare while on holidays” and using a flyer of information as a tool to transport the message.

Implementation

So Karin (Chiang Mai, Thailand), Eva (Fürth, Bavaria/Germany) and I (Offenburg Baden/Germany) developed a text, chose some pictures and gave it all to the wizards of design at Sabersaturn (Chiang Mai) …, who created the PDF-Design used as source to order the print at an internet company named Flyerpilot.

After only a few days I received the flyers free to the door. What a wonder of modern communication.

In our part of the global village the local police constable is very strict about rules, so there was still the questions about where and how we place the flyers and who gives us the permission. After a few calls to the town office, Offenburg fair organisation and the hosting VdH (the German association of dog assemblies) it became clear, the flyers could be placed at the information desk of the VdH at the entrance of the main exhibition hall.

Host

The VdH… takes its responsibility as a host regarding the visitors of its exhibitions very serious and looks closely at who wants to use these events as a presentation platform and it’s not enough just to say the magic words “animal welfare” and assume they will accept your ideas.

In a conversion with Mr Reidenbach while visiting the fair I learned more about his organisation and the event itself and the criteria they use when deciding if or if not they allow an animal welfare organisation to participate in any form at their events.

The Internationale Rassehundeausstellung in Offenburg (international pedigree exhibition Offenburg) is a combination of beauty and sport contests for dogs, road show and sales fair around dog products designed for a broad spectrum of visitors and not just members of the associated organisations. It lasts for a complete weekend and last year it had about 16,000 visitors, a number which this year will probably be exceeded.

The aims of the hosting association the VdH are not restricted on promoting the ideas of pure breed dogs or the interests of breeders, as shown in its name “Verband für das deutsche Hundewesen” (Associaton for German dog business) and in its slogan “for the dogs”, in fact the people of this organisation feel responsibity for the welfare of dogs of any kind.

The event itself shows special contest for mixed breed dogs and contests in dog sports for example agility which are open to dogs of any kind.

some impressions:

Criteria

When it comes to animal welfare the association learned lessons of the past and does a stricter and closer check of organisations who ask for support.

List of criteria:

• Donations must be safe and it has to be sure they are used solely for welfare of the animals
• The program of the organisation must target the source of the problems
• There should be local solutions for local problems
• Especially regarding animal welfare abroad, the organisation is critical about organised cross country adoptions (for example to Germany) and don’t support such programs.

  Reason: Although such a measure helps in individual cases, it’s only a short term solution and the energy and resources for doing that (expensive) export of some dogs are better used to help the whole population in the local area.

  Another problem is seen in the export of diseases formerly not known in northern countries like for example the issue of the sandfly and Canine Leishmaniasis imported from Spain.

With the content of our flyer, personal conversations and the information about Care for Dogs on the internet and on our web site, we convinced Mr Reidenbach and his organisation that we are a welfare organisation worthy of support.

Big points we got out of our sterilisation and vaccination programs as well as from our work in the field of education in close contact with schools and all that beside the work on emergency cases and as a local adoption agency.

Thanks

Once again thank you Mr Reidenbach and your organisation the VdH, that we were allowed to show our flyers at your information desk. (It must be said the only organisation on animal welfare abroad !)

We’re proud having passed your test.

Special thanks to David Williams of Sabersaturn for designing the flyer layout.

Care for Dogs hopes that all visitors who take one of our flyers take a little time about “animal welfare while in holidays” and may be some will find us in Chiang Mai, Thaialnd.

Call

There are still a lot of flyers (German language) left and we plan to make further use of them at other places like vet clinics, Thai restaurants or shops or wherever else we find an appropriate place especially in the German speaking countries or German speaking communities in Thailand.

If you as a reader know such a place and would like to take some of our flyers to put them there don’t be shy use our comment option or send us an email, and we will try to provide you with some for distribution.

We would be happy to find more people to promote our ideas of animal welfare and hope you would like to be one of them.

We were there to collect a couple of TvT (Transmissible Venereal Tumor cases) and to check in with Elissa Francemone, the teacher who is driving this project. It was great to see her along with many young and interested folks, looking to improve the health of this temples dogs, giving mange treatments and vaccinations against heartworm, using Ivomectin.

In the grounds of the temple, there are a lot of dogs, some puppies living in a burrow and lots of mange, fleas and ticks.

Right across from the entrance to the temple is a local market which is busy with people, plenty of food and obviously, a large number of dogs. Lets hope NIS can help these folks around this temple appreciate the benefits of sterilisation.

Our visit was however, cut short, as we received a call from a distressed resident of Sea Games Village, saying that a dog had been poisoned and was in desperate need of assistance.

After collecting just one of the 2 TvT cases, it transpired the second dog had already died but how she died we may never know, we made our way to Sea Games Village, which is on the Canal Road, adjacent to the 700 Year Stadium.

On the way I had a chat with Om, the patient with the tumor and experienced the ride from the back seat.

She will join this week’s TvT run along with the current list of 10 others being given weekly injections of Vincristine (Chemo therapy) which is gauranteed to stop the tumor growing and help the dog make a full recovery. I will be writing about that subject a little more, with some nasty photographs very soon.

Now I appreciate what it’s like on a Monday for the poor guys sat in the back.

Apart from there being very little leg room, if you are sat with a character who wants to look out of your window, there isn’t much you can do about it but squeeze up together and share the view!

At Sea Games Village, we met up with the lady who called us, whilst desperately trying to save the dogs life. We were too late. She had done what she could, tried to pour a solution of charcoal and herbs down the dying dogs throat but unfortunately the dog could not make a recovery from the painful and wretched sequence of death that poisoning so often follows.

If we had arrived sooner, there would have been nothing more we could have done. A vet may well have been able to assist in some way but that again would have been a delay in time.

This village is a government development and after discussing the death with our colleagues at Lanna Dogs, we found that this dog and some others were recently sterilised by the government vets. This ‘murder’ is not the first to have happened in the Sea Games Village, we have been called a couple of times previously when other dogs have suffered the same fate.

What can we do? What can anyone do, if there is someone who hates dogs so much that they will lay baited food down for the dogs to eat, knowing the consequence of their actions.

All we can do is hope someone catches them doing it and is brave enough to tell people like us who it is.

But having said that… to murder a dog in Thailand is not thought to be an offence anyway.