Beach dogs can be quite problematic in Krabi. While they are normally quite friendly, all it takes is for one of them to do what dog do sometimes, which is to bite something they consider to be a threat, and the government often will move in under the cover of darkness for a culling of all the dogs with no prejudice. There have actually been incidents of people whose dogs have just gone missing because they were mistaken for a stray dog when actually they just were wandering. We can think of this as a terrible tragedy but also very irresponsible on the part of the owner: In a country like Thailand, it is extremely foolish to allow your dog to wander. This is not a safe country for that sort of thing.
The busiest beaches in Krabi that are not islands are Ao Nang and Hat Noppharatara and they are both side by side. These beaches have accommodation for thousands of people and for most of the year, many people flock to these iconic areas to vacation. It is quite well-known that Thailand has "beach dogs" almost no matter where you go.
When we got the call that there were newborn puppies on this beach we knew that we needed to spring into action because once you have one litter, there are going to be more, so we set out to investigate and capture all the females that live on the beach for sterilization. Thankfully, we had the assistance of some gentlemen that work there in the boating industry that know the normal location of the dogs and this helped us in getting to them a great deal.
It was a bit of a mission getting all the dogs into the crates and we don't like making the dogs uncomfortable but this is for their own good. There is kind of an unspoken agreement between the dog population and the authorities of this area that provided the dog population doesn't become out of control or unruly, the police and whoever these midnight assassins are do not need to get involved in any sort of culling. Therefore our organization has no choice but to capture and sterilize all the females to prevent the population from growing out of control and having the powers that be hit the reset button by killing all of them under the cover of darkness. This is a dark and unspoken aspect of Thailand's non-existent animal control. As a primarily Buddhist country, the idea of killing an animal because it is a nuisance is definitely a violation of religious belief, but money drives the world so if the dogs are negatively affecting tourism, the assassins step in to stop it. We want to prevent ever getting to that point and this is why we do what we do.
Obviously, the dogs are not very pleased about being captured and caged and of course they don't understand why we are doing this to them, but in the end they are handled with the utmost care and compassion and we only keep them long enough to perform the surgery and check for other issues and then if we happen to have the resources at the time - which fortunately at the moment we do - we vaccinate them against various diseases and parasites as well. We then return them to their "homes" as quickly as possible. This normally only takes a few days.
While we are there we also take time to meet and greet with the dogs that we are already familiar with and give them some food and also some treats such as fish balls which they almost always fail to catch when we toss them to them.
We also have been spreading the word to the police, the security at hotels, as well as the tourist police which is a separate branch of the police force here in Krabi, that if there is an area that starts to become problematic with dog population to please contact us first before taking matters into their own hands. I have been in this country for a decade or so and I have noticed many a culling that has obviously taken place. We would like to prevent this from happening in the future because not only is it exceptionally cruel, it is also not a solution to the problem. When a culling occurs they never get them all and they simply repopulate a year later and the cruel process repeats itself over and over.
The ONLY way forward is through population control via sterilization and as our years pass by we feel as though the powers that be and even government officials are beginning to understand that our method is actually a better method. Perhaps one day they will even financially support our efforts or develop a government-run system that is similar to our own. There is no animal control branch of the government in Thailand and it would be nice if that could change and also operate in a humane fashion. This is our ultimate goal and every day that we do a project like this one at Hat Nopparatara beach, we gain more friends that are on our side as far as this endeavor is concerned.
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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