There are a lot of dogs in Thailand, and from what I have seen not a great deal of care for them-especially spaying and neutering. Widespread mange and dangles. Koh Phayam has a lot of dogs too. They are everywhere. Walking through town you could not go 10 feet without seeing at least 1 dog, and usually 5 or 6. Our guesthouse had their own pack of 5+ , led by Boola. Sweet dogs, always ready to go for a beach walk with you, help dig a hole or play soccer. It was really enjoyable to have them around. They immediately adopted you as family, even being very protective of us if other dogs or strangers came onto 'their' beach. It was a real highlight for the girls. They all had names, but Ellie and Zoe renamed them.
They hunt for shrimp or crab or something that live in little holes on the beach. The dogs are fun to watch and interesting to see all the different pack behaviors. You don't often get to see natural behavior in a big group of dogs.
Koh Phayam is special in they have been collecting donations and organizing spay/neuter/care clinics with local vets. We donated 500 baht ($15.35), which is enough to fix 1 dog. I suggested that Ellie talk to her Girl Scout troop to raise money for that, and Ann-Kristin joked that if they were very successful, the headline would be "Girl Scouts cause extinction of island dog population".
This afternoon while were having lunch in town, we got to see some of them fed. One of the ladies from the restaurant came out with a big bucket of what looked like rice and chopped up leftovers. She went to 5 or 6 different spots around the property-each spot maybe 20 or 30 feet apart, and fed each dog in things like an old wok, a plate or a tray. The dogs are very polite and wait in their own spot, not greedy at all.
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