Every Wednesday afternoon I stay at the shelter with the dogs. The whole week I am looking forward to this. When I park the car the big hello begins already. On the very front side there is my beloved James. He is quite a character. He has almost no hair and a black tongue and moves around in the bunch as he is the boss of the whole place. Without doing anything he brings me to laugh. First I place myself on the platform just next to the entry and let the bunch fall over me. The big fight for my love has begun. There is big licking, pulling of my hair and the big black dog eats again on my shirt, the hole is getting bigger and bigger. Mai pen rai. I wear special “dog clothes”, you don’t wear “Armani” here. Within a short time they sit, stand, lay on me. Slowly I know my friends by name. This takes a while, because there are a lot of them. Sometimes I stand in front of a dog and ask hin: „how are you, i never saw you here?” Ah, and here is also „Loong“ who I approach with a mission in my head. The goal is to give him a shower what he really needs. He truly is not a beauty but he has a loveley charakter and is a quiet dog. I already can hug him and maybe soon carry him. It is a passionable thing, but we are going to make it. After the big hello ceremony I go to look into the enclosures with the freshly operated or the dogs which have to be separated because their sickness can be transferred to other dogs. New patients sometimes don’t look very good but when they look better and better after week to week often there is already a relationship between us. I also sit with the sick dogs, because they need special attention and love to get well again. But sometimes i am not allowed to sit with some dogs because they have contagious diseases.

I try to hug all the dogs in one afternoon. While I change my place or the enclosures many dogs follow me. I talk with them nonstop and they also with me. I’ll never forget Kazim, the blind brown fellow, an older dog who always stays a bit offside. He already knows me from far away by my voice. Kazim is a quiet, lovely dog and because of that he often gets forgotten. As well as Paul who cannot use his back legs because of a motorbike accident. When I saw him the first time it broke my heart, but very soon I realised that he is a happy dog and soon I saw that he is not in pain. He lives in an enclosure with other dogs because with his handicap it would be difficult for him in the big bunch. He has a wheelchair and enjoys being taken out for walks regularly. With him there are other dogs which come and go for medical care and so he is never alone. The next enclosure has younger dogs. In the middle of the bunch is our comic boy Alfie. He came three weeks ago as a small puppy and he did not look as a dog at all, more like a little ET. When he arrived his tummy was big from worms like a balloon and you could hardly see his legs. He was the smallest but not afraid at all from other, sometimes much bigger dogs and everybody loved him. He was the middle point and made us all laughing so much. Now his tummy is normal and a “Schnauzerbeauty” came out of him. For him we will find soon a good new home.

Adoptions are one of the main priorities of this well-organised rescue work by Karin and her team at Care for Dogs. We try to find good homes for the healthy dogs, so there is space to take in sick dogs again who need our help so badly. We could take every day twenty new patients but with approx. 110 dogs and puppies we are fully booked out. Often there are visitors coming to look for a dog. Or there was a couple coming after they had adopted two adult dogs and had problems with one of them because he was very shy. So we took this dog back and they chose another one. In the shelter always some building is going on, e.g. all the metal doors where cut in the middle so the staff, volunteers, or visitors can enter more easily, because so many dogs are following. Or new bamboo dog houses get built for the coming rainy season. The dogs have a very good life here. They can lie on higher places ore they can go under somewhere. What I always like to do is brushing the long-hair dogs. Afterwards they feel much better and look very good.

Maggi