Wat Klong Song Temple Dogs

Many of you know Thailand as "the land of smiles", where the sun (almost) always shines, nature is abundant and the people are friendly and approachable. Unfortunately, time has taught me that this is just what shows on the surface:  the real Thailand can be very unforgiving, disrespectful towards life and at times, outright disgusting and shameful. I have been living in Ao Nang, Krabi, for numerous years now,  working for a marine conservation program,  trying to get the locals to understand the importance of protecting the marine environment. The story I'm about to tell you though is a different one. The story I want to tell you is about the innumerable stray animals, dogs in particular, that roam these roads, uncared for, left to themselves and often targetted by spiteful people. Krabi region isn't known for being the cleanest, safest nor one of the most educated locations in Thailand: most people here are driven by the need to grasp at all the money they can get from tourists, giving little thought to what they are doing to the environment in the process. This clashes with the general image that the world has of Thailand as a spiritual place where people and nature live in harmony and peace. This is particularly true when it comes to stray dogs, who are often seen as vermin and pests, rather than pets. The reasons are various, religious beliefs being first amongst them, but this page wasn't created to point fingers and find the culprits, but rather to gather the few people that do want to help out and to find enough generous donors who can help us out financially. In many cases, people here are fearful of all and every dog they see, let it be small, big, owned or stray. I have seen people run to the opposite side of the road screaming in fear of my dog which i was walking on a leash; parents rushing to pick up their child and "save" them from my dog which was happily trotting along the beach. Unfortunately, fear often led to hate and violence as well. From the small cases of a person throwing a stick at the dogs to scare them away to people throwing rocks, all the way to people luring dogs away from the Temples where they find refuge in order to feed them poisoned food and purposefully run them over with their cars. I have tried to approach the issue with a number of people, trying to understand what the reason behind this fear and hate is, but unfortunately, no one has given me a straight answer. Many hide behind Religion, claiming that the teachings say that dogs are unclean and evil creatures, but after much research, I have discovered it to be untrue; in any case, it is still unclear to me precisely why or how this hate for dogs has developed in this area.  Regardless of the cultural and/or religious beliefs that afflict this area, the effect of it is that dogs are rarely seen as pets, but often seen as pests that need to be eradicated. This had been especially true recently after some tourists were allegedly attacked by a pack of wild dogs on the beach. The government got involved, Facebook warriors took arms at their keyboards and people started calling for mass cullings, shooting and poisoning. Harmless, vaccinated and neutered dogs were rounded up from public beaches and brought to holding facilities which resemble concentration camps. We saved the ones we could, but unfortunately we don't have the space to save them all. The remaining stray dogs roam the streets in search of scraps of food to survive, they are often sick and starving, in desperate need of medical care.  Fortunately since Thailand is officially a Buddhist country we can find numerous Temples (Wat) in the area which take in these dogs, feeding them and tending to their needs to the best of their capabilities.  To my understanding, being a Buddhist Monk requires that a person give up all their worldly possessions and rely only on the generosity of others to feed themselves and survive. They are not allowed to own money, let alone spend it. Monks walk the roads every morning visiting the locals, which donate food and household items for them to eat and use.  Some people come to the temples and donate there. Very few people take notice of the dogs, even fewer donate food or medical items for them. In our free time, my colleagues and I visit one of these temples and take care of the dogs that inhabit it by taking them to the vet in Krabi town, where they receive the medical care they need, their vaccinations and where they get sterilized in order to tackle the problem of the ever growing population. We also visit some dogs that do not live in the temple because they do not get accepted by the pack, and that are forced to continue living on the road. Needless to say that food, medicines, vaccines, and surgeries are not free, and unfortunately none of us has a hidden stash of money saved away to spend on these adorable dogs. Nevertheless, most of the money we need comes out from our tiny salary, and from donations from friends and kind-hearted souls. One of our supporters suggested to set up this GoFundMe page to try and reach to a broader audience, so here we are.  I thank you all for the support you have given us up to now; we wouldn't have been able to take care of all these dogs without your help. If you need clarifications or have any questions, please feel free to contact me at any time, I will try to get back to you asap.