Spock

She forgot to mention that they torture the dogs before fillet them so the meat tastes sweeter.

Only a moron or sadist would do that because the adrenaline makes the meat inedible. The same as deer and boar that that are hunted with dogs; the meat is inedible. Trapping, deer stands, boar trails can be used to gather quality, tasty game. Where I grew up in the country, hunters stopped using dogs except to flush out game birds or point out trees with squirrels and raccoons in them. I grew up lower middle-class in the country and we supplemented our larder with wild game. I have friends in Isaan that eat large ants, grubs, toads, and almost anything that moves. When you are poor, protein is protein and one can't afford to be choosy.

Getting confused with eating snakes.

When I was in Vietnam and we eat snake, they hit the cobra with bamboo sticks because they believe if the adrenalin is flowing then there is more taste in the meat when the snake is slaughtered

And it is the same with dogs and cats. They are tortured and beaten to sweeten the flavour. It's called a fact, my friend, not a confusion.

Who cares and what the hell is Downtown Abbey?

Would anyone in Britain care if Nok Noi and Thongchai Mcintyre made a video about the treatment of rabbitsin the UK?

Good questions, as usual.

Make you wonder who is organizing something like this and for what reason?

More dogs eaten in Vietnam, China and South Korea. The latter very cruel.

The Japs are killing Whales again.

Game birds are bred and reared to be blasted out the sky in the UK. Deer are hunted in Scotland. Poaching going on all over the world, rhino and elephant slaughter in Africa etc etc.

Seems like someone or some group might be trying to keep Thailand under scrutiny for all the wrong reasons at the moment, cause as much trouble as possible for them. Paint them as the worst when they're not.

What a load of rubbish! Poor Thailand being victimised!

People who complain about the amount of dogs in their soi should help pay for them to be neutered or humanely put to sleep and help clean up their Sois rather than just sit on the bar stool and moan about it put your money where your mouth is [ I doubt it very much ] Most dogs that go into rescues in USA/UK end up being euthanized anyway I doubt this very much all my dogs that I have in the UK come from shelters and all the ones I donate money to do not put down heathy animals, not sure about the USA possibly a country full of greedy people so just put their dogs down, but defiantly not happening in the UK we put our money where our mouths are.

Pay whom? Labour is cheap in Thailand, so I suspect many people who are bothered by snarling and potentially dangerous soi dogs would gladly pay an agency or a company a reasonable fee to have them humanely removed.

Please advise us further about this, so we can contact the people who provide this service, or you may be accused of sitting on a bar stool and unreasonably moaning about people who complain about soi dogs.

BTW, I guess your "bar stool" comment was to compromise the character of some people. If you don't like soi dogs then you must be some some degenerate alcoholic who spends the day in bar. Cheap shots at people don't make your opinion any stronger.

Isn't the fact that dogs are not "put down" here, as they are in some other countries, something to do with Buddhist beliefs?

Thai vets in my experience will not put down injured animals because of Buddhism. Doesn't seem to matter if the animal suffers pain or incredible inconvenience.

Seriously, with all the problems in the world celebs get together to help with this???? Hardly Bob Geldof's live aid is it, could think of thousands of things that need the media attention more than this.

Thats right Jeremy, cos Ebola is never talked about is it? Or the fact Islamic lunatics are beheading innocent people in the name of their god. Oh hang on, we never hear of the Ukraine airplane anymore do we, or the one went in to the ocean, presumably.

So <deleted> has other problems around the globe to do with the fact dogs, soi or not, are being treated with huge cruelty in a land that supposedly doesn't eat their meat and is also strongly Buddhist?

I stand corrected, this is absolutely the best use of celebrity status possible. How blind of me not to see it the first time, thanks.

How would you explain a cage full of dogs about to be clubbed to death to your little daughter?

hmm, the usual - our set of values in the West are superior to your set of values in the East. Why doesn't she speak up about the cruel treatment of cows or pigs or chickens in Britain? But then it's ok to raise those animals in mass inhumane farms, kill them and eat those animals, but just not dogs......

There is no point replying to posters like you who so totally miss the point.

It is amazing to me that people would think of speaking out against a valid food source, yet say nothing about cruelty towards humans; child labor, child abuse, slavery of migrants. I believe that humans should be first before animals. If it means that humans eat animals to gain protein, so much the better for both animals and humans.

Read my post above about human culling. And who says the same people protesting the barbaric treatment of dogs isn't also concerned about other issues in this world!

People eat meat. Some people eat dog meat. Why is it that people that are always going on about tolerance seem determined to force the world to adopt their ways? Next thing, they'll be going after the French for eating rabbits.

It's not about what people eat but how the animals are treated and killed. Why can't you get this through your thick head! The Chinese, Vietnamese and apparently Thais go out of their way to dispatch the dogs in the cruelest way possible.

Ha Ha ah ha ha !

CCTV will get safety when their guards are sleeping !!!!

They have guards employed for sleeping in working time !!

Ha ha ha ha !!

In other countrys guards are fired if they sleep on working time,

you need to watch your guards by CCTV !!!

Between 4pm and 6am next morning, prisoners are together in their cells without being observed by guards or, I believe, CCTV footage of cell activity. It is not a case of guards sleeping but rather not being present at all. Without this private time, prisoners would not be able to charge or use the mobile phones that are smuggled in. Prisoners wishing to bully or victimise other prisoners can do so knowing their actions will not be observed.

I am guessing that people who have not been drug users, do not know how to go about getting them without taking a chance on being arrested and ending up even worse off. The only way that I know is to ask a tuk-tuk driver and that ends badly for many people.

You'd be on the money with that reasoning. Even those who do take drugs come unstuck in Thailand and elsewhere, often becoming unwilling contributors to the police benevolent fund when trying to score. Thailand is probably a nightmare in which to procure drugs given how squeaky clean it has sought to become. Scoring from tuk tuk drivers would be enough to drive you to suicide. If they were your only drug source, your life would be a living death anyway.

59 years old in a foreign country with no job, probably no money and no prospects of getting either one. It might seem like the most sensible thing to do.

RIP

I was thinking about that yesterday. Thailand attracts a lot of people most of them good people. But it does attract a lot of desperate people looking for some thing in a bottle and a women also drugs which Thailand is well known to have an ample supply of all three.

After a while they realize they are still looking and just decide to end the search for what ever. There seems to be a lot of deaths in Thailand by falls off of balconies. I just wonder if in some of those cases it is a deliberate fall with no assistance.

Just a thought

If you read the Pattaya Mail, quite a few tourists tend to die from flinging themselves off balconies. I often ask myself much the same as you - did he jump or was he pushed? Surely with some heavy duty drugs available in Cambodia or Laos, or even Thailand, why choose such a desperate method of suicide? Jumping from heights doesn't seem a great option.

What?? Parking fee at 2:30 am??? It can't be true.

It was not a parking fee, it is a payment to look after his car so it does not get damaged, well it sounds like it did, i know it is stand over and wrong but sometimes better to pay and not have a problem and next time not to go back to the same place again.

Get a life mate! Nobody pays 40 baht to not damage your car for 5 minutes. Refusal to pay does not warrant kicking a car and belting it and the person with a lump of wood. Besides, when you pay people not to damage a parked car, you do so when you park your car not when you return to it.

Seriously someone would hang themselves over loosing a job??

Another sad Thai ending.

Got to be more to it than just losing a job.

My money is on his lovely teeruk left him also in the process. No money, no honey, however regardless, neither losing a job or/and a GF is worth losing your life over, not even close.

RIP

At age 60 in Thailand, you are finished as a teacher.

What was he gonna do?

Just wait til ASEAN kicks in next year. Most of the current western NES school teachers, in SE Asia (especially, in last placed Thailand), will become immediately un-employed. Start saving your money NOW! You're gonna be needing it, in the (not very distant) future. A word to the wise, should be sufficient.

Can you explain this in more detail. Why will ASEAN cause teachers unemployment?

wow... He must have had some seriously bad stuff going on. I'm the same age and in the last 12 months we lost our business due to the anti-government protests and left Thailand after 14 years. got given the big 'C' diagnosis from the doctor, I'm now speaking to my wife on the phone daily rather than after work.... Nothing has made me even contemplate what this bloke has done, he must really have had some demons in his head. RIP fella

I hope your own circumstances improve. How did the anti-government protests cause you to lose your business?

We all have different capacities for handling what life throws at us. Our bodies also fall apart in different ways and in different places. Experience builds resilience in some but erodes the will of others. And some of us have more support than others when life is tough. Be understanding and compassionate.

In every country you pay big taxes but in thailand you don't.

Tourists benefit by not pay to much expense for good and services on the island and in thailand.

So if tourists want more protection they should pay.

Its simple.

Thais don't need the protection.

What a load of rubbish! Tourists should not require protection, particularly on a small idyllic island such as Koh Tao. What tax Thailand imposes on its own citizens is up to them but it is not up to tourists to make up the shortfall. Can't think of any country where levies are imposed on tourists to provide security during their visit.

Good standard of discussion in this thread. Step parenting is fraught with difficulty. Lots of Thai street kids are the products of step parents who don't want the kid around.

The usual suspects who seek to discredit or insult other posters seem absent from this thread. Lots of heart felt honesty and some good advice has been expressed. As someone who has no step children but has dealt with them in the context of a welfare job, the conversation has made for interesting reading.

Thai teenagers present their own special challenges, particularly the boys. Asian mums seem much happier raising pre-teens than teenagers. Once the kids start questioning their parents authority, many Thai teens become rebellious and undisciplined, and parents seem uncertain in their parenting styles.

Thanks to many posters for their bleak, happy and hopeful tales of family life. May you be successful in resolving your own situations and living together harmoniously.

Only people with bad intentions don't like it.

The only ones that frown at me are the TukTuk and cab drivers...

Cab drivers???

They'll bend your ear all day if your alone & show you can understand them.

I often talk politics with Taxi drivers. They are are generally happy to chat in my experience. Maybe not in the popular Tourist areas, but everywhere else they are eager to express opinions on many issues.

There is little enough for Thai prisoners to do during the many hours they are locked up together. A home made bingo set or a pack of cards would both be regarded as contraband items because they could potentially be used for gambling. Only in Thailand could a bunch of people sitting playing a game be arrested and jailed. Given that prisoners are not allowed money inside a jail, it's hardly likely anyone would be playing bingo for high stakes. If prisons were regarded as indicative of a country's moral worth, Thailand would receive a very low rating.

Do any Australians know the eligibility regulations regarding receiving the pension overseas? I seem to remember reading that you had to have worked in Australia for 35 years (do part time/casual work years count?) but when I attempted to find information about eligibility recently, the only provisos that I could find was that the person had to have lived in Australia 35 years (formerly 25). Does anyone know the true criteria?

Best and most professional with reasonable price in my opinion is Bangkok international dental center (BIDC) next to the emerald hotel on ratchada (din daeng/huai kwang area).

Google them. Very modern and clean facility, English speaking staff.

You can find cheaper clinics but I think this place is worth it.

Thanks - I did as you said and Googled them but it seems to be all horror stories over on Trip Advisor:

http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowTopic-g293916-i3687-k1700692-Dentist_in_Bangkok_BIDC-Bangkok.html

What do you reckon?

I think that 2008 is a long time ago. There are several threads on Trip Advisor from 2013 and 2014 which contain detailed reports of good experiences from people undergoing major dental treatment at BIDC. For instance: http://www.tripadvisor.com.au/ShowTopic-g293916-i3687-k5074410-Bangkok_International_Dental_Centre-Bangkok.html