Care for Dogs were recently asked to visit a new location for us, out in the forested area of Mae Rim, a newly renovated temple Wat Pa Dara Phirom.

One of the nuns there was concerned that the number of cats and dogs at the temple were growing and they had no way of dealing with it internally, they needed help.

There is no financial support / safety catch net to assist places like this, despite being the basis for many communities and the very foundation of Thai society.

Temples exist, are funded by donation and many of the facilities provided within the temple grounds are laboriously created over many years, as and when funds are available. How true this comparison is to the work we do.

Within the temple we met up with Mare Chi Ning, the nun who had called to us and she showed us around the various locations of the temple complex, where cats and dogs were making there homes.

We found dogs in, on, under and around the living accommodations for the monks and nuns, lazing in the shade on the stairs or sprawled across the paths between the houses and we were finally shown the home of one of the nuns who dedicated her time to looking after cats.

Kittens of every shape and size were popping in & out of the shrubs , basking and hopping over on a roof and some were mincing up and down the concrete pathways trying to attract our attentions … or were they just waiting for butterflies?

The nuns then took us to where 7 adults cats were being kept away from the males for fear of further pregnancies, in a large wired / fenced enclosure, attached to one of their homes and besides the rancid air and squalid conditions around this cage, it was hard to place your feet somewhere dry that wasn’t a route for a column of volatile ants.

We agreed to commence a sterilisation project here and suggested 4 of the cats should come away with us and after sterilising them they would return to the temple. But for many of the dogs, the immediate problem was a severe infestation of red fleas. Now when we say fleas, these are not the small black, jumpy and shinny ones. These are 3 times their size, red and they run more than jump. On many of the dogs we saw, their coats were alive with them, where coats had been scratched away, the skin red raw from irritation, the fleas were clearly visible on the bare flesh.

Regular readers of posts here will recall that we try to include references back to wikipdia or some other site to substantiate identification but sadly these red flea looking things are not easily found on the net, despite the fact that we see so many here in Thailand.

Slowly we gained the trust of the dogs by giving them handfuls of food (also containing de-worming tablets) and eventually we were able to start the methodical spraying of each dog. One of the The nuns had a small bottle of something which she had tried to spray them with before but when she showed us her style, it was similar to spraying the air with air freshener. As it turned out the spray would not have killed fleas but aided the repression of mange.

Already loaded with the cats for sterilisation, we bid the nuns farewell until another day and promised to care for the cats whilst they were recovering from their operations organised for the following day.

You can read more about the temple and the Princess Dara Ramsi here …