It can take months or longer to gain the trust of a rescue animal
One of the major obstacles facing a lot of rescue animals and subsequently the reason why some animals are difficult to arrange adoption for is that because of the life they have faced of neglect and even abuse, some of them tend to be distrusting of humans or even fearful and therefore dangerous towards them. In most cases this is not the animal's fault, but rather the fault of the abusive environment they were brought up in.
For many of the animals that we bring into our care, they have been kicked around, chased away, had things thrown at them and shouted at by the humans whose areas they have lived in and scavenged for food in. While we don't see many cases of abuse the likes of which would exist in countries where dog fighting is common, we do have a lot of dogs cross paths with us that after years of seeing humans as enemies, are really unable to believe that we mean them no harm.
In extreme cases these animals badly need our help because of injury or disease but it is almost impossible for us to capture them in order to help them. Normally this process is about as difficult as it would be to capture any wild animal and they have to be tricked into entering a cage with some sort of delicious treat in it such as fried chicken (this is always a go to for us) and then the door gets closed behind them. As you might expect they almost always react violently to this.
It isn't difficult to imagine why they would behave this way. Just like a child who has been injured by a specific animal many times in their lives a dog that has always been kicked around by humans and chased away by it isn't exactly going to be easy to convince that you don't mean it any harm.
In this particular situation, this girl, despite being fed by the same group of humans for 5 months in the field, absolutely refused to approach us. Some days were better than others but even when you could get her to take food out of your hand she would do so very quickly and then run away to eat it. If you put the food too close to you, she would for the most part not approach. We don't exactly know what she went through in order to make her this way but we were eventually able to trick her into the cage and at the vet, where her operation was scheduled to set a broken bone and get vaccinated and sterilized she had to be sedated through the cage in order for this to happen.
Even in the hands of a medical expert this is the standard procedure. After the operations she stayed with us in one of our kennels for about a week and was completely disinterested in any human that would come to say hello.
Although it may sound a bit cruel, but it was decided rather quickly that she was not going to be one of the animals that we take on and attempt to put up for adoption because at the moment we have so many dogs in the same situation and unlike her, they actually seem to really like humans. Anyone who would consider taking on this dog as an adoption has a tough road ahead of them and while there are people in the world that are willing to take on such a responsibility, unfortunately the timing and lack of funds right now mean that we have to be quite choosy about which of these animals we are going to take on as adoption potentials.
At least we can celebrate the fact that she is going back to the only home that she has known which is just wandering the streets of a particular rural neighborhood but at least she is returning vaccinated, with a healed leg and tail (both were badly infected), and is also now sterilized.
If you live in the western world the same process is done when rescue adoptions are considered but unfortunately the dogs with the bad temperaments - which most of the time are because of the environment they were brought up in - are slated for euthanasia. This process doesn't exist in Thailand because of Buddhism prohibiting it - and we are kind of thankful for that.
She probably will never be friendly towards humans, despite our best efforts but we are still going to check in on her from time to time and who knows? Maybe one day she will at least recognize us and not see us as threats although since the vet estimated that she is 3 years old, it is unlikely that her overall fear of humans will ever subside.
Once again I want to encourage everyone to adopt, not shop for pets and to volunteer your time, money, or both to your local animal rescue or animal shelter: I can promise you that every little bit is greatly appreciated.
If you would like to see how you can help out or simply spread the word, please visit our website at
http://krabianimalwelfare.org
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