We have had 3 great weeks with Elephant Nature Park Dogs (soon to be called Dog Sanctuary Thailand). March and April sees the hottest temperatures in Thailand and this year was no different. Even in the cooler mountains north of Chiang Mai the temps were hitting the high 30’s.

As a result even simple tasks like walking the dogs for their daily exercise was difficult!

I will write up a full travel page for the ENP Dogs soon so this is just a small update!

So what did we do for three weeks? Mostly we concentrated on the 20 or so dogs in the clinic, the other 400 in the large dog runs are looked after by staff to ensure they have food and water. The clinic dogs were in due to injury, surgery or disease. A large number came in with Parvovirus which was running riot in the local villages. Those dogs had to be kept in a specific isolation area with handling precautions to prevent the virus spreading to the others. Others infections included TVT and Mange, each requiring separate isolation. These groups were the hard ones to work with, most survive, some didn’t, but all of them wanted affection,to be petted and loved. So hard when you can’t do this properly and they wonder why!

The other dogs we loved to feed, walk, bath, and give affection to! Of course cleaning up after those that could not wait for their walks was also required!

The runs with many dogs in them was a lesson in pack mentality. How to introduce yourself, other volunteers, and especially a new dog. Sometimes new dog introductions go great, other times the fights break out and we are called to action. 

It was great to be there and learn so much. Hopefully lessons we will carry forward to the dogs in Cambodia.

We are back in Siem Reap now, waiting for our year visa to come through. Next week is the Khmer New Year so the process is delayed.

Stay tuned for a full write up!

Adventurer