This One’s For You Sally
Woof woof, don’t go running to the back door thinking there’s a dog rummaging about in the backyard, it was me, I promise won’t do it again. Dogs have been biting the bytes on the blog sites this week as our lovable canine friends grab some of the headlines around the Thai blogosphere.
If you are feeling in a bit of a mutty mood then try The Thai Pirates post (Dec 7th) about his two new Coffee Shop additions and the search for his lost friend, and it includes two lovely doggie photos. Aaah.
For those of you with stronger stomachs, grap your rubber ball, dog lead and head off to My Thai Friend and a dog story that will water your eyes and have you counting your credentials by the end. A word of warning, please make sure your food is fully digested before reading this post as finely chopped carrots and minced tomatoes in a thick yellow brine, are very difficult to clean off a keyboard.
Many Thais believe that dogs are people who have behaved badly in their previous life and maybe that’s why the poor old mutt doesn’t get treated as well as the over pampered pooches from the farang world. Dog rescue centres are not uncommon in Thailand but are generally under funded and overworked in trying to stem the flow of stray dogs onto the streets of Thailand.
The Dog Rescue Center Samui was set up in April 1999 and helps to look after and care for stray dogs and cats on Koh Samui. Previous to their help the strays were culled by government workers with the use of poison, but nowadays the center has the stray population down to more acceptable levels and many of the animals are found homes with loving owners.
Sadly in August this year my parents pet Sally, a beautiful Springer Spaniel, died after battling with a lengthy illness. Unfortunately I have not got any stored photos of Sally but trust me she was a lovely looking dog and I miss her madly. In her youth we spent many days going for an afternoon stroll and a quiet drink together in a local bar or club.
Sally died one week before my last Thailand holiday and even though I had a fantastic time, there was not a day went by when I didn’t think about her, and that still holds true today. This one’s for you Sally.
I am going to sign off with a couple of top ten lists, I like these kind of lists and they are always open to great debate.
Top 10 Cleverest Dogs – 1..Border Collie… 2…Poodle… 3…German Shepherd… 4…Golden Retriever… 5…Doberman Pinscher… 6…Shetland Sheepdog… 7…Labrador Retriever… 8…Papillon… 9…Rottweiler… 10…Australian Cattle Dog
Top 10 Famous Cartoon Dogs – 1…Snoopy Peanuts… 2…Scooby Doo… 3…Underdog The Flintstones… 4…Pluto Disney… 5…Lady & the Tramp… 6…Odie Garfield… 7…Brian Griffin Family Guy…8…Santa’s Little Helper The Simpsons…9…Blue Blue’s Clues… 10…Ren Hoeck The Ren & Stimpy Show
Credits
Photograph Cartoon Dog © Vertes Edmond Mihai | Dreamstime.com
Lovely little ramble on the dog theme in Thailand. Looks like there will be far more dogs in the world once another generation had died accordingly to Thais’ beliefs!
Here in Bulgaria dogs are doorbells with a few knocking about as bouncers against wolves in the night for shepherds. Dogs are looked upon as a practical animal in the countryside. In the towns and cities they are more of a fashion. Stray dogs galore here as well, okay individually as loners in fact quite shy, but packs of dogs that sometimes gang up can be dangerous to a passing public.
No Scooby Snacks fed out here to dogs, recently its been just fish heads?
HD now I understand about soi dogs and their treatment-thank you.
Coming from a family of village folk(my Grandfather was a gamekeeper-not Mellors BTW)we always had dogs around. labs and spaniels mostly.
Incidentally back in LOS Sitar is on his feet now but has some sort of “nappy” tied around his vitals and a plastic neck collar, its so funny watching him on the soi! I will try and capture it for MTF.
Sorry to hear about Sally – we can get really attached to man’s best friend.
I’m afraid that my mutt doesn’t qualify for your lists – where’s the Top 10 stupidest breeds then? Mine’s just eight short of the dimmest hound on the planet …
Although personally I think she would give any Afghan a run for its money in the stupidity stakes…