When we are out and about checking on the dogs in the temples or some rural area, we will come across some dogs that are happy, well-fed, and appear to be completely healthy. It is still important for us to check them more closely though because a dog that wanders and sleeps outdoors and doesn't have regular access to some sort of medical care will almost certainly develop some very common diseases that dog, particularly those that live in close proximity to other homeless dogs, commonly come in contact with.

The main thing is parasites. They have a magnificent ability to travel from one animal to the next and while a human can easily detect and take care of these things, dogs do not have the ability to treat themselves, or the agility and thumbs to remove them if they are external.

Take this guy for example. We were alerted by someone in the village that he was starting to act strange and would whimper for no reason. When we went to go and have a look he was extremely friendly and very approachable. This is always really nice to encounter because it makes our job a lot easier.

Upon on-site inspection it was pretty easy to determine some things that wrong with him. Although it certainly wasn't widespread there were signs of some mange and I picked a few ticks off of his head. We likely would have helped him anyway but because he was so easy to deal with and compliant we decided to give him the full treatment.

People sometimes ask why it is that we transport well-behaved dogs in crates. The answer is quite simple really: We have only known this dog for half an hour and we have no idea how it is going to react to certain stresses. A car ride for a dog that never does that sort of thing can be terrifying and that once pleasant demeanor can disappear pretty quickly. Therefore we always crate any dog for travel unless they are on of our own dogs.

Unfortunately the diagnosis at the vets office was not great. This wonderful and friendly little chap has the external parasites that I described earlier but that is very easy to take care of. He also has blood parasites which is also relatively easy to take care of, but then the vet discovered that his blood has a very low platelet count and this can mean a bunch of other things including cancer. We did another test for that and sadly, it turns out he has cancer as well.

Dogs handle cancer treatment a lot better than humans do and nothing really seems to dampen their spirits. The only problem is the cost and the necessary repeated chemo treatments. We will perform this but it going to have to take place over the course of many months. This obviously is not free. Fortunately our fundraising has been pretty great in 2024 so we are going to take on this project anyway.

I'm reminded of the "triage" times that we went through during Covid when our fundraising efforts were nearly completely switched off because of travel regulations and the ban on events taking place. hell, we were barely allowed to travel out of our facilities to acquire food and needed a permit from the government to do so. During those times where most of the staff here dipped into their own savings to just get the bare minimum of things like food and medicine, we feared that the end was nigh for Krabi Animal Welfare. Fortunately things really turned around for us after the lockdowns were over and we have had a relatively prosperous fundraising effort in both the UK and here in Thailand ever since.

As far as this dog is concerned, we are not going to give up on him. We don't know his name if he even has one, nor do we really know how old he is. What we do know is that he is one of the friendliest pooches we have encountered in a long time and we look forward to getting him all healed up in the coming months.

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if you would like to see how you can help out or simply spread the word, please visit our website at

http://krabianimalwelfare.org

_{Krabi Animal Welfare is a charity run entirely by volunteers and are a registered non-profit organization in Thailand and the U.K.. We aim to relieve the pain and suffering of dogs and cats within Krabi Province.}

เป็นผู้สนับสนุนรายเดือนหรือบริจาคครั้งเดียวได้ที่:

http://krabianimalwelfare.org

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