Yesterday I visited Rama IX park with the particular intention of seeing Nudee, having a chat and giving him some food.

The last time I saw him, was a year ago. I took some photos of him which you can see here …

When I pulled into the car park, I was amazed at there being so many food vendors there, almost double the number from a year ago. Still the various other dogs, some looking quite attached to the stall holders and some acting distant and more at home wandering around the lakes and staying under the trees.

In front of me, was a brown fur patch on the tarmac. Something like a moth eaten rug that granny kept from her early days and you just wanted to throw out and buy her a new one. Something that I nearly ran over!

As he lay there curled up in the middle of the car park, not in the shade of the stall holders umbrella’s and not out of the way of cars and people driving or treading on him, my heart went to my throat and I squatted down and talked to him.

His puss filled eyes struggled to open and the look of recognition was similar to that of the wrongly imprisoned prince, from the Richard Chamberlain version of “The Man in the Iron Mask”. He held his head down and his ears spoke a thousand words. His tail however, said a lot about the dangers of sleeping under cars. The end was not curled, the tip had been broken and was hanging like a question mark?

Poor Nudee, who 2 years ago was spotted here by fRed, a dog loving Chiang Mai resident whilst walking her own dogs in the park. At that time, he was afflicted with TvT (Transmissible Venereal Tumor) and as well as having mange, suffered from a chronic ear infection.

Nudee was my first experience of TvT and I quickly came to terms with the treatment regime. Nudee also came to learn the regime …get in the car, go into town, lay on a couch, have a massage including penis, ears and belly, get in the car, return home, get food.

This went on for nearly 2 months and I was seeing him every week. At that time, I met another volunteer with Care for Dogs, Nola Kelsey who like me, fell madly in love with Nudee.

Nola spent a great deal of her time with Nudee during her stay in Chiang Mai, in between buying copious amounts of food and vitamin tablets which she mixed into delicious Tupperware take-outs and hassling Tuk-Tuk drivers to take her outside of the city to Rama IX park where she could feed Nudee her love.

But back to yesterday, as you may imagine, I was a little upset to see him in this disheveled condition. I spoke with one of the vendors who sold me 3 chicken drumsticks for 20 baht and my friend Paul who was witnessing this awful scene with me, bought another 20 baht’s worth.

Nudee scoffed the lot. The guy with the drumsticks (Kh Toy) said in perfect English, that he liked Nudee and was now pleased to know his name. He said that his wife often brought food from their home for him. I discussed the situation with Kh Toy and he agreed to help with Nudee’s recovery and would give him medication and vitamins if I left them with him.