Our Week With The ENP Dogs

Upon our arrival at Elephant Nature Park I was very surprised to learn that the beautiful 200 acre reserve was not only home to the 42 elephants we were so anxious to meet but also to over 400 dogs, many of which had been rescued from Bangkok after the tsunami.  It soon became clear that the dogs were just as important an aspect of Lek's project and vision, with many dogs having free roam of the park and getting to mingle with the elephants and water buffalo!  After meeting with Dr. Rinku, one of the veterinarians, he told us how beneficial it would be to have veterinary students lend a hand at the dog shelter.  We decided to divide our two weeks here at ENP, two of us working with the dogs for one week and two of us with the elephants and then switching.  Lauren and I headed to the far end of the park near the front gate, unsure of what we would find!  We met up with Pong, the veterinary nurse who graduated from Chiang Mai University with a background in animal science.  Pong is the main man at the clinic, in charge of all veterinary treatments for the dogs, everything from surgery to basic vaccinations and wound care. 

Lauren and I with Pong in the treatment room

How does one house 400 dogs?!  I was amazed at how well the shelter was set up.  There are many large outdoor runs complete with a concrete structure for shade and playing and a pool of water for the dogs to cool off from this Thailand heat!  There are about 25 dogs per run and they have their own mahouts that stay with them throughout the day and keep an eye out for any abnormalities.  The clinic itself has space to house about 15 dogs and has a treatment room and a separate room for surgeries.  We were pleasantly surprised to see that it was quite well stocked with supplies, although some of the drugs we encountered we had never heard of and there were definitely less options when it came to treatment.  Lauren and I quickly realized that the week would be fast paced with only 2 other volunteers to help us walk all the clinic dogs 3 times a day in addition to assisting Pong with all treatments and surgeries, bathing dogs and lending a hand with the inevitable daily emergencies that would be brought in.

A couple of cases that we got close to included Ninja, a brown scruffy boy with the sweetest face and a strong tendency to park himself in the middle of the road at the hottest point of the day.  He had had surgery for an aural hematoma in both ears but was now needing to have them drained each day.  One of the elephant mahout's dogs came in, a female named Cee with a large bite wound on her back above her tail.  Bite wounds are very common here since there are so many dogs constantly interacting with each other, but all the dogs are carefully placed with ones they get along with so it is not as bad as it could potentially be! Cee's wound was most likely at least a week old and had become badly infected.  Because it was so large and very deep, maggots had developed and we spent a long time helping Pong clean the wound and removing them.  By the end of the week, with the maggots gone, the wound was already looking a lot better and had begun to heal.  Poor Cee was anxious to get back to her normal routine and made it clear through her very unique "gremlin-like" grumblings.  A beautiful lab Rhodesian ridgeback cross named Sally came in as an emergency one afternoon with an extremely high temperature of 106 degrees F (normal for a dog is between 98-102) in addition to having about 100 ticks in each ear (we are here during tick season and most of the dogs have ticks that need to be pulled off their skin; something Lauren and I were experts at by the end of the week!).  We covered Sally with cool wet towels and ice packs and started her on fluids to try and lower her temperature while we carefully cleared her ears of all the ticks.  After some rest she is now doing much better with a normal temperature and is so happy to be rid of the ticks that were making her ears so itchy!  We were also fortunate enough to assist with multiple spay and neuter surgeries which are so important here for controlling the stray dog population.

Trying to lower Sally's temp with ice packs and cool towels

Ninja during bath time!


Working with the dogs was an amazing experience.  Not only is it applicable to our future interest in small animal medicine but it was so incredibly rewarding to help these sweet and lovable dogs.  All of them had such a personality and good disposition, we wish we could fly them home with us!!  Thank you to Pong for being such a great teacher and helping make our week so enjoyable!

Hope everyone at home is enjoying their summer!

Steph Pelka xo