Fostering a dog or cat is a rewarding experience, one that can save lives and improve treatment of animals. The Care for Dogs shelter has numerous dogs who need this respite to gather strength, self-esteem, socializing skills, a time to convalesce or in the following case time to find an adoptive family.

Remember “Dolly”???? She was handed over to Hand to Paw Temple Outreach by the Luang Por (head Abbott) at Wat Huay Sai. She was found alone by the roadside by a local villager and brought to the temple, which was not at all able to handle this situation. She appeared on initial observation to be paralyzed or crippled in her back hind legs, frightened and un-well.

 

The fate of a disabled dog in Thailand is bleak, foster care being one of the only solutions. Unfortunately, adoptions of disabled dogs are very uncommon and shelters cannot provide the staff or the special care needed for long term living.

With her own special luck, Dolly’s sweet face and gentle nature, she found an immediate foster home with Liz, a Hand to Paw volunteer who took Dolly into her home to join her other four 4-legged members. Even though Liz had a full house, she strongly felt Dolly needed time and a family environment in order to recover her failing health. Little did she know, besides her disability, Dolly was also suffering from e-canis, liver problems, rotting teeth and malnourishment. Other follow up visits with the vet determined that she was most likely hit by a vehicle. She did not suffer paralysis, but she was crippled from injuries to both of her knees.

Although small in stature, this little fighter did not want to lay by the sidelines while her new family took off daily on their morning walks, played in the yard, climbed the stair around the house and jumped into bed with “mum”…she wanted a little bit of that action for herself. With sheer determination and what we like to refer as “the power of love” Dolly built up her strength AND taught herself how to walk again. If you had seen her a month earlier, her tangled, useless limbs and weak attempts at scooting along the floor, you would truly believe this was a miracle!

Initially a foster arrangement, Liz and her brood found they could not separate from her and her endearing qualities once she regained her health. She was adopted into the family and appropriately re-named “Tua Lek” (Little one).

Had it not been for foster care, Tua Lek may never have regained her strength nor discovered the resurrecting effect that love can have in the healing process.

If you are living or visiting Chiang Mai for several weeks or months and would like to help provide a second chance for one of our many worthy foster dogs, please contact Care for Dogs. We have a foster case to suit every situation, you just need to make the first step and enquire…it will surely change your world and theirs.

To see Tua Lek on her daily stroll click on the following video:

I’ve decided to share some of my fostering experiences in the hope that someone else may be encouraged to take in a dog or two, or cats and kittens and give the individual love and care that some of them need for recovery or re homing.

So this is a quick introduction just so you know how I got here.

It started with me making one phone call, I said I had a few days in Chiang Mai and asked if I could come to the shelter, just for a day.  My tuk tuk driver cursed as we drove  away from the city and into the beautiful country side. I thought it was fantastic, he thought it was much to far from home and refused to come back for me.  But the trip was worth it, I knew instantly that this was going to be a very worthwhile way to spend the day.  There was a school visit in progress so there were children and dogs everywhere, and they were all having a great time. The atmosphere was so relaxed and it was just so much fun.

Then over a quick lunch at a local roadside cafe, Karin and Ally told me all about the shelter and what their aims were.  I could see that there was a very real need for volunteers. I was supposed to be spending 3 months traveling around Thailand but decided to stay in Chiang Mai and have a few months at the shelter instead.

That was March 2007, and the need today for volunteers is even greater, back then we had 35 dogs (it’s hard to imagine now!), today we have around 130 and it’s a battle every day to keep the numbers down.

So now I’m back for my fourth visit. In June 2008 I moved into a small house so that I could take in foster dogs. (On previous trips I used to smuggle very small dogs or kittens into my guest house.. not ideal!)  My plan was to take in one or two dogs at a time, the ones who needed special medical care or just a quieter place for recovery.

Well I peaked in June this year with 6 dogs, 10 kittens and 2 mother cats! Way too many, even for me, so with all the kittens now homed and the dogs recovered it’s back to a very manageable number.  When I started writing this I had just one little dog, 3 adult cats and 4 kittens, but then I got an evening call to a Temple where some tiny kittens had been dumped and were in danger of being eaten by the Temple dogs, an all too common fate for many kittens here.  So now I have another 4 kittens who thankfully are just about able to eat by themselves. That’s a relief.

Dogs and Cats with me Today

Lulu is my only dog right now, she is part of a street project run by Teresa, another volunteer.

Lulu is a small black poodle type who has been rejected by her owner.  She had just raised two beautiful pups but was obviously sick so Teresa took her to the vets where she was found to be suffering with pyometra and was given an emergency hysterectomy.

She also has E.canis, a disease caused by tick bites and was aneamic, also because of the ticks.

Her little body was covered in them and her matted fur had to be shaved so that they could be fully removed. She also has a luxating patella so she limps some of the time.

She’s making steady progress and will be looking for a new home very soon.

You can read more about Lulu here …

Then there’s George  and Snowy, two beautiful Persian cats who were dumped, along with two others in a Temple.  It was thought at first that they were suffering with both FIV and FeLV, but after having full blood tests done, I have now discovered that they both test negative for both diseases. So they are now looking for a new home.  See our Category Cats for Adoption …  for more information.

Momma cat has been with me since the 1^st of March.

She was taken from her Temple for sterilisation but when the vet opened her up she found that the cat was half way through a pregnancy and quickly stitched her back up.

Care for Dogs were about to put her back at the Temple and get her again after her pregnancy, when the lady who feeds her said that it wouldn’t be that long because the kittens would be eaten by the dogs as this was what always happened.. this is sadly the fate of many kittens who are born or dumped in Temples. Knowing this made it impossible for me to leave her there, so she came to my house and one month later gave birth to 5 kittens, and all, I’m happy to say grew up safely and have now found new homes, so a very happy outcome for them.

Unfortunately, when we tried returning Momma to her home  she was rejected by the lady at the Temple. You can read more about that story here …

But this turned out to be really lucky for me because 7 days after the last two kittens left, I got a call from some American tourists who noticed that 4 tiny kittens had suddenly turned up near where they were staying.  They kept watch in case a mother cat came along but after two days they realised that the kittens must have been dumped there.

As they are only  about 3 to 4 weeks old I started bottle feeding straight away but the desperate crying alerted Momma and she came running to see what was going on.

For a while her confusion was obvious and she spent about an hour crying too, it was a very noisy time. Then she picked one kitten up out of the box and moved it into a dark corner and started to wash him.  It was so lovely to see I could have cried.

The kitten was instantly comforted and Momma did what mother cats do, stimulated him to go to the toilet and cleaned him up after wards.

I passed the others to her one by one and she did the same with them all. Soon they were all snuggled up with her and we all went peacefully to asleep.  So now we are a great team, I do all the feeding and Momma does everything else.

Perfect.

Great news, today we learn that all the kittens were able to find homes, thanks to Eric and Mira’s hard work to publicise the plight of this homeless family.

And despite saying that their house was full, they just couldn’t turn the mother of the kittens away, they have taken her into their family.

Good news all round!

This email and poster today came to us from some caring people living in Chiang Mai. Although we do not have facilities at the Care for Dogs shelter to accommodate cats & kittens, we are pleased to be able to forward any information on to people that might be interested in adopting them from foster homes.

Dear Karin,

As promissed I send you the pictures of our cats what we need to have out of
our house.

As I told you we already have 4 cats of our selves, one is very ill and the others are very jealous. One of our 4 cats is already a street cat what we adopted from the street here.

We think his mother was every time in our garden, a few months ago he was here already one time with a baby cat for what we put something outside. Now the last two months he was trying to come in our house but we keep him as much as possible outside.

Now she was pregnant and he had five young kittens in the garden. As it was raining outside we couldn’t let them outside. So my wife took them inside

Now we have 10 cats in our house and this is really not to do for us. Four cats is our limit so we could use some help before we leave this house in 10 weeks as we move to our new home.

So I would like to ask you if you can help us, as you have on Sunday a fairby Carrefour, than it is maybe possible to hang up the pictures of our cats. If you need some help in making some flyers than I will do that for you so that we can put them down by Carrefour on Sunday.

If you could put our cats on the website would be great. If someone is interested we can send them weekly picture of the cat they like.

If you want the cats in Carrefour, than we could bring that day a box with all the cats in it, than if someone is interested he can leave his name and address and as soon the kittens are big enough we can bring them to the interested persons.

Thank you very much already for your help what we appreciate. Please look at the attached announcement.

You can use my telephone number on the site no problem.

Lets hope they all find good homes soon.

I returned to Chiang Mai in June and hope to spend another year working at the shelter. But this time around I am renting a house so that I will be able to foster dogs that are in need of a little extra individual care. Ive been back since the 1st June and so far have had 7 different dogs with me. The first to come home with me was Paul. For anyone who has been following Allys blog, you will remember Paul, he was hit by a motorbike in March 2007 in a Soi in the city. The vet said that nothing was broken, he had nerve damage and he may walk again.

Atrophy is the biggest problem for Paul so either myself or one of the other volunteers has to give him daily massage and physiotherapy and occasionally we get him into the pool for hydrotherapy too. He is now at a point where he can push himself up and stand on three legs, but sadly he doesn’t seem able to progress from there so this week Karin has set things in motion to get Paul a wheelchair so that he can enjoy a better quality of life and get around faster. Not that life is bad.. he has a very happy nature and enjoys the changing dog scene at home and when I go to the shelter he comes along too.