The Dog Wat

On our last day by the beach I wanted to make sure we visited the local temple, Wat Summanawas, that is known as the "Dog Wat" as it is home to many stray dogs. It's really close to where we were staying, you could walk there in about 20-30 minutes or so. I had picked up some dog food to donate a few days prior, although we could only carry so much on our motorbike and I wish we could have bought more. But it was at least something and I wanted to donate it to the Wat to help their dogs. We biked over there and were greeted by a couple of dogs with not a single person in sight. We weren't sure what to do, or if it was closed for the day, but I wanted to hand the food over to an actual person if I could so we walked a little further and found one lonely monk inside one of the buildings. We told him we had food to donate and he said to talk to the guy who takes care of the dogs and pointed us in the right direction. That's when we met Dam, the caretaker to the dogs.

We were greeted by Dam and a larger group of dogs and he immediately wanted to show us the rest of them and where he takes care of them all so we followed him and all the dogs behind the temple. Dam is not a monk but pretty much gave up his life in Bangkok to come here and take care of all these stray dogs. He said it was so sad he just had to do something. He has been taking care of them for 4 years now and at the moment has over 80 stray dogs to feed. What this guy has done and continues to do is beyond amazing. He knows all of their names, cooks up meals for them every day from donations of rice, kibble and milk and even gives them medicine when he can.

Every day he makes a sort of soup/stew to feed the dogs in a massive wok over a fire. Dog kibble is too expensive and harder to come by so he mixes it with rice, milk and water to stretch it further. Once it is ready he dishes it out to many bowls and the dogs usually wait a little bit for it to cool, although as you can see many of them went straight for it out of the wok! For the puppies he makes a softer meal out of milk and rice that is easier for them to eat and keeps it in a bucket high up in a tree so the other dogs can't get to it. He plops them up onto a high table and feeds them in smaller bowls so they have a chance. They all look so sick, it was heartbreaking.

There was one little pup that just about killed me. Tiny little black and tan coloured girl who was shaking like crazy, struggling to eat. She reminded me of those starving children in Africa you see on the tv all the time, stick thin, with ribs pointing out but with hard swollen bellies from infection. Thats what she looked and felt like. I think she may have been blind because she had problems finding the bowl and eating, but when I took some rice porridge out and put it on my fingers she practically ate my hand trying to get at the food - she was obviously very very hungry. Poor little thing. I did my best to feed her as much as I could and when Dam told us that we could name the pups because they still didn't have their own names I so badly wanted to name her. But Byrd told me I should pick another one that might actually make it and as sad as that was to hear, he was right. I doubt this little girl will live very long, I hope to God she will but it sure didn't look good. As we left she was wandering off into the woods in the wrong direction, all by her little self. It took everything in me to turn around and leave, I wanted to help her so badly.

As Dam was showing us the last of his bag of rice and the tiny bit of kibble he had left, Byrd immediately handed him every baht he had on him which was about 300 baht. Not much, but its something and at least he can buy a new bag of rice with it. I wish we had more to give but you can only do a little. Even if I feed them today or tomorrow, what about the next day, or the next week? There's no end to it. In Thailand, stray dogs are everywhere, few of them have homes, none of them are neutered or spayed and it's just one vicious ongoing cycle. Most of them just wander around begging or scavenging for food, sleep on the streets and sadly we saw more then one that had been run over, killed or seriously injured. It breaks your heart to see. I fed them every chance I got from under the table in restaurants. The bag of food we brought was eaten in seconds, it hardly made a dent at all and all the dogs went crazy for it.

Every last kibble was gone! Dam decided to feed them while we were there and started scooping out the dog soup into dishes placed far apart from each other. It's easy for these dogs to get into scraps over food especially since they are starving. He does his best to separate them but you can see the war wounds on most of the dogs from fighting, some from infection.

Some of them were doing better then others. A couple of them had skin parasites that he was treating with medicine, the mothers that were feeding their puppies looked soooo thin, like they had given everything they had to their pups. But they all seemed to be happy and so was Dam. This guy really is a miracle worker. Next time I go to Thailand I will be back here, with more kibble, more money and more time to help out. And if anyone reading this ever goes to Hua Hin, please stop by the area of Paknampran by Khao Kalok (skull mountain) on the beach road and visit Wat Summanawas. For everyone else, I wish there was a website or somewhere that you could donate to the cause or adopt these strays and give them good homes, but I did come across a similar temple in the same area that does have a site. Check out http://temple-dogs.com/index.php

In the end, I named one of the healthier looking pups "doll" and we managed to tear our hearts away and leave somehow, although I could hardly take it. I still ache for these dogs and will think of them and Dam for a long time. I hope one day I can visit again and see Doll all grown up.

Me with the little sick pup I hope makes it.... 

Me and the little pup I named "Doll".