New Year = new sterilizations

I have said many times before that our foremost goal is to use our funds to perform sterilizations on the stray dog population of the Krabi area. We of course do what we can for the dogs that are already alive but the only way that we can put an end to this problem is to eradicate a great deal of the unwanted animal population. If we were to approach this any other way the problem would probably get WORSE because animals that are well fed and well looked after will only reproduce at an even faster pace. To some it sounds a bit heartless but really there is no other way to tackle this problem unless we had unlimited land and resources. Even then no matter how much money we threw at it the problem would eventually reemerge. This is the reality of dogs and cats, they will reproduce as much as possible and because unlike in the wild there are no real natural predators that create some sort of natural balance to life, the end result is a group of beings that survive two years if they are lucky. Most of the time those 2 years are spent in abject misery and suffering as well.

This is why our primary objective always has been and always will be sterilization.

With the help of some local volunteers we were able to identify and temporarily capture some female members of a pack, a few of them were not so easy to get a hold of. Even though you have the animal's best interest in mind, they tend to be quite stand-offish in regards to humans. This is nothing that a bit of chicken can't solve though and we were able to get them all crated up and transported for their operations that is actually a very simplistic one and then after just a few days we bring them back.

We only pick up the females and I am not going to get into a science lesson about why that is. Let's just say that it is more efficient that way :)

One thing that we have to be careful about during this procedure is that we do not hang onto them any longer than we need to. One of the worst things that could happen would be for them to become too dependent on us and then not be able to survive on their own. In an ideal world where I had billions of dollars we would just acquire massive swaths of land, sterilize all the animals on it, and hire an army of people to look after and care for the animals. Unfortunately and especially in trying financial times like these, we are doing the best that we can.

Thanks to the generous donation of medical expertise by the Krabi Bangkok Animal Hospital, these operations only end up costing about $20 or so and this is merely to cover the cost of the anesthesiology medicine. The generous family of veterinarians (they have 3 generations of doctors in house!) perform all other tasks at no charge and we are truly grateful for this.

Without their gift of time and ability, this process would be dramatically more expensive and our operations would be seriously stunted because of it.

After these 5 sterilizations we have managed to prevent the additional suffering of at least 40 other pups and this is a tremendous victory in our eyes. When we return the dogs to their pack land, they are immediately welcomed back in by their "family."

We will be closely monitoring them and stopping by from time to time to make sure that they have enough to eat. However, based on the look of these females, they are considerably better fed than most of the dogs living on the streets in these parts. I suppose we have the local community to thank for that.

If you would like to see how you can help out or simply spread the word, please visit our website at

http://krabianimalwelfare.org