Help Me Learn To Say No

[girlx]

i have one dog that is mine that i rescued when tiny. i am trying to find a home for her because otherwise i am trapped where i am for the next ten years until she dies. no luck so far in months of looking. since i moved to my village i have already had 2 other very beloved dogs die on me, both really horrible deaths. i try to keep the local dogs away now. however recently some stupid farang kid kept coming to my house with a neighborhood dog, who is very old. farang left, dog stuck around. i waited until he was starving and then gave in and fed him. now there is a mama dog coming around. i had seen her foraging for days and knew she was also starving so i fed her. needless to say, both those dogs are still around. but now the mama is dragging her 9 puppies to my house every day, and it is madness. i keep throwing them back under the house a few doors down they were born at, but they are just old enough to find their way back. i CAN NOT take care of 9 puppies. how do i ignore them? make them go away? do you think it is possible for me to get them all to go away except my one real dog? any advice? my neighbors would just poison them.

[girlx]

ugh one of the puppies just got it's head stuck in a can... it was in a pile of leaves and i watched for a couple of minutes without realizing it was stuck and suffocating to death. i pulled the can off and saved it, but should i have left it to natural selection?

[Soph]

Bless ya Girlx, I know exactly what kind of situation your in, ive been there myself and it is so hard. I used to take in all the ugliest mangiest dogs, because I knew that these were all the ones that no-one else would ever bother with. I remember going to visit Samui Dog rescue once and being heartbroken. My Thai neighbours thought I was start raving mad!!!!

Once my ex bf, after being a <deleted>, thought it would be a good way to apologize by picking me up from the ferry with 2 fluffy puppies in the basket of the bike, hed just found them near the ferry port and took them from their mum. What was I meant to do? Couldnt just leave them, so home they went with the rest. The story of what happened to those is far too long to mention.

In the end it got too much and a friend had to take some away to the 'Wat'

Cant really offer advice, apart from try to ignore them as much as poss, but I know its hard x

[bkkmadness]

I hate to see animals suffer as well, I even tap the side of the sink before I use it to give wandering ants fair warning to clear out before they get washed away! At the end of the day though you do what you can and you can't beat yourself up about what you can't do.

Yes pull a can off a dogs head, but you can't be expected to feed all these dogs and care for them until they are adults or lived their whole lives its impossible. Dogs breed a lot, and with large litters for a reason, because there is natural selection and there is the survival of the fittest rule.

Your a kind hearted sole Girlx, and nothing to feel guilty at all, chuck out a bit of food for them when you can but if they learn to rely on you it's gonna be a problem. They need to fend for themselves.

[girlx]

hmm do you think i should actually refuse them food?

[bkkmadness]

I'd chuck them out spare food, and coz they are puppies I'd try to get a little extra spare for them but as they grow up they will start to look around for themselves a bit more. Realistically its about doing what you can within your abilities isn't it?

[Boo]

I would put food out if you want but put it away from you & your house & lead them to it until they start hanging around there.

[english_farang_lady]

I would put food out if you want but put it away from you & your house & lead them to it until they start hanging around there.

Shortly after moving here we got lumbered with two full litters from a very cute fluffy stray. I have rescued and re-homed dogs/cats/birds/geese most of my life, trying to do my bit. But here it is impossible.

I fed the two litters on boiled rice mixed with a little tin dog food and water until they were seven weeks and adorable. Then advertised them on customer notice boards in supermarkets, on TV, in newspapers, and in doing do homed 8 to really good homes.

Puppies are relatively easy to home. Adults are almost impossiblee to home unleess you can find a hook or something special about them. I have trained all mine (very simple, just reward them within three seconds with a tidbit) and they remember and do it again.

Two dance, one woofs and sits, they all shake hands, they all lay down, they are all house-trained, vacinnated and neutered. This last is the most important. It breaks the cycle of misery my ensuring that they dont have any more puppies.

As I think I have said before, the situation is desperate here, I have beeen to many different countries, but here in Pattaya is the worst. Sadly, the only thing to work is a three pronged approach, educating the kids and people, culling the worst, and re-homing the rest with free neutering for all.

The king in Hua Hin contributed 4 million baht for a dog centre. There are way fewer dogs on the street, and only the odd one who looks hungry.

The only way I cancome to terms with it is to think that these are wild dogs. Not abandoned domesticated dogs.

But my own collection of strays disproves that. They are loving, intelligent, friendly, and loyal.

It is a sad sad fact of life in Pattaya.

[girlx]

i think it is a sad fact of life all over thailand.

so far 4 of the puppies have found homes. and i have ended up feeding the rest. the mama keeps insisting on bringing the two littlest girls back to my house, and no one wants girls, so most likely i will end up with them. but if i want to spay them that means somehow getting 3 dogs (actually 6 girl puppies and 2 female adults around) to the other side of the island on a day that a vet is available. difficult for me. if they aren't spayed, they will have their own litters in six months or so, and this will be a never ending cycle. i can't believe NO ONE cares in thailand about this... their answer is to poison them- just yesterday one of my favorite neighborhood dogs died of poisoning. it's a horrific thing to do to an animal. i have tried to get people together to help clean up the dog population by spaying etc., no one cares. the thais just keep buying and coddling poodles and ignoring the strays. it's out of control and very frustrating.

[November Rain]

The king in Hua Hin contributed 4 million baht for a dog centre. There are way fewer dogs on the street, and only the odd one who looks hungry.

His Majesty the King did indeed generously give that money to found the 'shelter' here & continues to contribute yearly from what I hear. I'm afraid I can't agree with the rest of the statement that I quoted from you.

I think kind hearted people like you & girlx are very much needed, but as you've both found out, there is always a bigger problem around the corner. Nobody wants adult Thai dogs, or very few people, despite the fact they are intelligent, loyal, loving, friendly, adaptable & hardy. You're right, widescale neutering is the answer, but nobody is willing to take on the cost or responsibility, apart from a few individuals and rescue agencies, who don't have the facilities or funds to do more than "their bit". It is, as you both said, a very sad situation...

[The Skipper]

Keep feeding them, then let them breed some more, then do like the Thais do and drop them off at the Temple next to my house.

We have a couple hundreds dogs barking all nite so another hundred or so will make no difference.

[skatc]

Girlx, how did you find homes for four of the puppies?

I'm living with my s.o on Koh Phangan too, up on the beach in Hin Kong, and I've got a litter of 2 or 3 month old pups and their mom living under the house. They were born in a yard across the street but we fed them treats and played with them (sooo stupid I know, but it made us - and them - so happy at the time). Now they think they own our house, and us with it. We've been ignoring them since they moved in a week ago but so far they're staying put. The neighbors are still feeding them (at least for now), but the puppies are barking at night and following us when we walk and generally driving us crazy.

I'm going to try taking 'Momma' ito the animal clinic later in the month to be spayed. In a Songthaew; this should be interesting. She seems like a good dog, but her puppies need to be trained, and taken away from the busy road before they become puppy pancakes.

[girlx]

i was just reading back through this post a year and a half later. all the puppies i was referring to died of distemper. one young dog ('sick') who i believe was dropped on my doorstep, survived after i nursed him through it, and then he got horrible demodectic mange. i nursed him through that too and he has recently gotten much better (and loves me to pieces). the mama dog ('big mama') i spayed and she is doing fine. and i have my main dog (spayed female, 'puppy') who my neighbors left with me as a puppy since they were leaving the next day to brazil. she is very spoiled and has never had to survive on her own. so i had narrowed it down to 3 dogs- 2 spayed females and a neutered male. i stopped even looking at the new batches of pups, and convinced the owners (or feeders) of the other neighborhood adult dogs to get them spayed. for the last couple of years, i gave those 3 dogs the best care i possibly could- hot meals every day, walks to the beach, lots of cuddles, a dry warm place to sleep.

still, the day came last week when i had to leave thong nai pan (koh phangan) due to various circumstances including a psychotic neighbor.

the sad situation is i had to abandon the dogs! i spent the last couple years asking everyone i could find to take in one or more of the dogs. everyone refused. i found one girl with a farm who agreed to take my main dog, but at the last minute she backed out because her thai husband didn't want it. the other dogs were adult street dogs with no discipline so there was no hope for them. i did find another family who agreed to take 'puppy', so i took them food and all her things, and i left her tied up at her house in the jungle. unfortunately after i left she apparently ran back to my house. i can't imagine this family will go out of their way to chase her around the village. so sadly, all three dogs are still living at the house i left, and there is not even ONE kind soul who will throw them a bone now and then. it breaks my heart. why can't people do their part to help?

i know. i should not have taken on the dogs in the first place as the likelihood of my staying in thailand for 10 years til they died was not high. but i simply can not stand idle and watch suffering. i wish more people were like this, i am disgusted that no one in thong nai pan cared enough to help. the thais would rather poison the dogs than give them leftovers. PAC was no help at all as far as re-homing goes (though i can't blame them as they are all the way across the island). the monks at the temples are useless in my experience. the local farangs are more interested in getting drunk and stoned. there is a big problem with homeless dogs on koh phangan and in thailand, and there is no one to fix it. unlike the US, there is no shelter you can take them to, you can't even euthanize them to prevent their suffering. there is probably not even any point in making this post about it. but it depresses me to no end, and i urge anyone who might be reading this to at least donate to PAC, so that eventually they might be able to be of some real help on the island. at least take any stray female you see to get spayed. at least throw your leftovers out so the dogs don't starve. at least give them a pat on the head when you pass them. please!

Edited May 18, 2008 by girlx

[smileah]

Bless all of you who have compassion for the suffering strays.

This is such a hard one.

One way to appease the pain is this:

It took a bit of hard work and preparation, but I feel better because of it. I befriended a female stray until she trusted me enough to get into a dog crate. I carted her off to the vet. Paid for her to be spayed and looked after while she healed, then let her back onto the streets.

I now know that she won't bring any more pups into the world, and that there will now be less suffering.

I know it seems like a crazy, and difficult thing to do, but it went better than I thought it would. All together, my vet bill was 1,400 - that included five nights at the vet's office. If you find a vet with a kind heart, you may get a discount for a street dog. I did.

Maybe a few of you can get together to help one dog.

This is the best way I have been able to come up with to help the dogs around here. I am currently coming up with fund raising ideas so that I can help another female stray I have been befriending.

There is no way one person can be expected to feed so many dogs. I feel that pressure should be put on the local authority to provide funding for this.

The stray dog situation in Thailand is both unacceptable and seemingly immpossible to change. That is why, I believe that spaying the females is the best way to go.

Once again, thanks to all of those with kind hearts. It is so difficult to ignore the suffering we see every day.

Edited May 26, 2008 by smileah