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  • Day 49

    Day 48 - Lanta Animal Welfare

    March 28, 2017 in Thailand ⋅ 🌫 10 °C

    Matt update - feeling a bit better and has graduated on to muesli and yoghurt as well as toast for breakfast. We had this before we got a tuk tuk complete with driver plus his two young daughters to Lanta Animal Welfare.

    Lanta Animal Welfare was set up in 2000 by a Norwegian woman who came to Lanta and saw how many stray dogs and cats in poor health were here. She sold everything she owned in Norway and set up a small rescue centre. She also set up a cooking school to help fund it and after 6 years she had enough money to move on to the current premises and look after more animals. The primary aim of LAW is to sterilise strays so that the population of animals which don't have a home to care for them stabilises/reduces. We found out that every time a female cat has sex she gets pregnant, something to do with penis barbs and ovulation and that female cat can directly and indirectly through her offspring produce 80 more cats within a year meaning the population spirals out of control. Through the work LAW have done they've managed to stabilise the number of stray cats on Lanta and reduce the number of stray dogs by 90%. Aside from the sterilisation they also treat animals, both strays and non-strays, and give advice/educate the local community on how to look after animals. Healthy cats are often released back as there just isn't the capacity to keep everyone long term but the animals which can't be released into the local environment for whatever reason are put up for adoption.

    The centre is open for tours, the donations from this form a large base of the funds to run the centre. You can also take the dogs for a walk which we did. We were asked about our dog experience (me none, Matt some) and then given Sanchez, a dog who was tied to a tree by his owner and had another pack of dogs set on him. So cruel. Because of that he can get spooked by other unfamiliar dogs/cats and has to wear a muzzle. The woman at the centre said we'd be ok cause Matt's a big guy. We were a bit puzzled by that as Sanchez isn't a massive dog. What it turns out it means is that Sanchez is stubborn and doesn't do anything he doesn't want to do. A lot of cajoling and gentle persuasion was needed. The route we'd been given was along the beach. Sanchez had a good sniff of everything, relieved himself etc then decided he didn't want to move. He just bedded down and stopped. We tried to keep going on the route and it was only when we walked back the way we came he moved a bit. We went through this a couple of times, be it when he wanted to go around a certain tree or when he wanted to go dangerously close to a deckchair he wanted to wee on. Eventually, via a number 2 in a load of ants, we had him strolling back. We tried to give him his bowl of water which he'd only drink if I held it up for him but he didn't get spooked by any of the cats we saw or chickens roaming around. When we got back they laughed and said he was an old man and didn't like doing anything he didn't fancy - hence why they have to put him with a strong guy or you'd never get anywhere.

    We had a bit of time before the official centre tour so went and played with the cats including a gorgeous little kitten with one eye called Wasabi. I wanted to put her in my bag and take her right there and then. I can see why so many tourists adopt them. We had our tour around the centre and learnt that they keep the dogs in packs and rotate them around the areas each day. Part of me expected the conditions not to be great but they were really good. Lots of space and lots of volunteers to give them love. When a new dog arrives they get tried in each pack to find a fit and they try to mix puppies and older dogs so the puppies learn some manners. One pack of older dogs never really get rotated as they don't like change and just want peace. There were so many sad stories of cruelty and a lot of the dogs were very scarred. The lady running the tour said the best part of it was if you were on night shift you could choose a dog to sleep in the bed with you which sounds a bit weird to me but whatever works for you.

    After the tour we went into one of the dog areas to socialise with a few of the dogs. We fell a bit in love with Pumpkin who's been in the centre since he was born 6 years ago. A while back he escaped and turned up 5 days later but is now terrified of traffic. I wish we could have adopted him and taken him home and I shed a few tears last night thinking about him. But he has a lovely life in the centre and hopefully someone more equipped to look after a dog like him will be found soon.

    We tore ourselves away and the same tuk tuk driver drove us back. It made me a bit sad to know that it was worth his while waiting 3 hours for our pretty small journey/fare rather than find another job. It is noticeably quiet here and I guess us tourists are fewer and further between than peak season.

    We went for lunch at a vegetarian place near our hotel. I had a massive plate of salad, homemade bread, a veggie patty and dips and Matt kept going on veg and bread. (Maybe too much). The place was pretty hippy, cushions on floors etc but the food was excellent. I appreciated the cushions to lie on with my patty baby. We got chatting to a couple of guys who live in Dubai but are English and South African. It transpired they were a chef and an events planner looking for businesses in South East Asia to buy and were mystery shopping the restaurant to see if they'd want to buy the business. It was interesting chatting to them about life in Dubai/South Africa. I don't think they'll be buying the restaurant though.

    The afternoon was then spent on the beach. It was overcast and rained a bit but was still a nice way to spend some time before dinner at a place which had rock band posters all over the walls and wind chimes/dangling ceramic figures from the ceiling. It was run by a rocker couple, she was the chef and covered in tattoos and he was on a crutch after 'an accident'. The food was immense and they were very funny. Matt still can't manage a curry but made do with Bruschetta and survived.

    It's mostly a transit day tomorrow as we head back to Phuket and then on to Bali. Zzzzzzzzz.
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