Care for Dogs could not wish for higher praise than that expressed in the following post found at this site mandyandbryan.com

On our last day in Chiang Mai I volunteered with Care for Dogs, and it was a pretty emotional day. I was really excited to play with dogs and it felt good to give attention to poor doggies that otherwise wouldn’t have much human interaction, but it was also really sad to see the state that some of the dogs were in and hear about the horrible things people do to stray dogs here. If a homeless dog in Thailand is lucky local people or monks at a temple will feed it; those less fortunate may be poisoned or taken to a meat processing plant. The dogs that wind up at the meat processing plants are tortured and beaten to death because some people believe that it is important that there be adrenaline in the meat when the dog dies. Trying dog meat may seem like something interesting to do for tourists, but everyone should realize at what cost they are getting that meat.

Care for Dogs takes in homeless dogs to sterilize, vaccinate, and treat any ailments they may have. Those dogs that have food source like those that live at temples or at markets where people collectively feed them are then re-released back to where they came from. Those with no food source and those at risk of being harmed are kept at the shelter in hopes of adoption. Sadly, chances of adoption for most of them are slim, but they do have plenty or room to roam and receive love from the volunteers that come through. It may seem strange to those of us in the West to re-release the dogs back to the streets, but they simply do not have the resources to care for all homeless dogs.

While there I definitely bonded with a few of the dogs like Terra Cotta (Terra for short) the Cocker Spaniel that came in the day I was there. I instantly loved Terra because of the resemblance she bore to my dogs who are also spaniels. Terra looked really out of place at the shelter and behaved as if she could not believe she was there. It was very much the same sort of reaction I would expect out of my dog Madison. While her attitude wouldn’t be very endearing to most, I couldn’t help but love her and feel really bad for her. I hope that she has made some new doggie friends and is coming to terms with her new environment.

Another dog I couldn’t help but love was Kaiser. Kasier has no eyes and looks like a teddy bear that has lost its button eyes thanks to a snuggling overload. Kaiser was a bit of a loner and was usually found lying by himself. The longer term volunteers said that he loves to chase frogs, but I’m not sure if he ever caught any.

There were countless other dogs that with wonderful personalities that I loved whose names I don’t know, and don’t even get me started on the puppies- total cute overload. If I could, I would probably take home half the dogs there, but I don’t think that my backpack would hold enough dog food for all of them.

As a testament to the good work being done by Care for Dogs, most of the dogs seem really happy and the place doesn’t have the hopeless and depressing feeling of most shelters. It was hard to leave at the end of the day and not do more. I would encourage everyone who cares about animals to donate to this cause no matter how much or little you can give. While at home it may seem like $30 won’t go a long way, here it is enough to sterilize one dog. If you are going to be in Chiang Mai, Thailand I would definitely recommend looking them up so that you can shower the puppies with kisses for me.

As usual I took tons of pictures so everyone at home can meet the dogs, and also in case Care for Dogs wants to use any of them for marketing.

Thanks Mandy - Please keep up your efforts to encourage people to contribute towards the costs of care for these wonderful creatures. You can see Mandy’s photo’s here…

If you would like to consider making a donation, no matter how small, please follow this link to read more about how you can make a donation to Care for Dogs …