One very hot and sticky afternoon we were called to Lanta Old town. A dog was stuck in a hole. It was to be shot unless we came and got it out. It’s only problem, in all fairness, was not that it was a dog in a Muslim village. It was also known to have chased motorbikes and bitten several people. And as it turned out, the female dog in the hole wasn’t stuck at all. She was using the 6 metre long drainpipe as housing for herself and her 4 puppies.
In the ditch on one end of the pipe, the locals were burning rubbish. A quick look inside the hole proved that the dogs, for reasons unknown, kept to the fire end of the drainpipe. The temperature inside the was high, and rising.
The fire was put out. There was black smoke. The bitch was barking fiercly. Large cockroaches came shuffling out. In the smoky confusion, a couple of puppies scrambled too close to the entrance. Tei, the vet at Lanta Animal Welfare threw himself halfway into the hole to quickly grab them. He got one out. Snatching the second pup, the bitch realised what was happening and attacked him, biting his head and hands before he could retreat.
Sun set and tropical evenings fall quickly. We were now working in the pitch dark, with only the aid of two torches and the quiet support from the villagers sitting around to watch the drama. We had got 3 pups out, and were almost ready to give up. But if we left now, the mother would be killed along with the last pup, and we would be stuck with three motherless puppies who would need to be hand fed. With no extra hands for special projects like this, they would have to be put down. So it seemed a better idea to just keep going.
We tried again. And again. We tried poking the bitch out with long bamboo sticks. We tried tying a big water bottle to the end of a bamboo stick and use it as a plug to push her out. We tried to blow-dart her with sedatives to pull her out unconscious. Not an easy job as she would be facing us, the intruders, when we came into the hole, and we needed to get her in the bum! If we did have a clear shot, the puppy would be in the way. Or a coconut! But as she was effectively going quite mad from stress, anxiety and adrenalin, the sedatives didnt work well anyway.
The puppies we had taken out were in a lousy condition, sitting in old ramen boxes waiting for better days. Dehydrated, feverish and stressed to the point of near unconsciousness. The one pup that was still inside the hole looked especially bad. Very small, he was laying on his side, small stubby legs stretched out and puffing away like a steam train.
Five hours, and equally many blow darts later, one of the local men crawled into the drainpipe. He had been feeding the bitch before she disappeared to have her puppies. The drugs were now finally affecting her, though not rendering her unconscious, she didnt make any aggressive moves. He lay inside the drainpipe gently talking to her for what seemed like an eternity. She finally recognised him,and allowed him to leash her and pull her out. We muzzled and caged her and put her in the back of the car.
By 10pm we pulled out of Old Town and headed back to the clinic. Riding with the cage in the back was a big black, very aggressive male dog, caught earlier in the day. He was in to be castrated! A cat, waiting for the same treatment was sitting in a cage in the back seat. At 11pm, the last animal of the day had been sterilized, the car was scrubbed and cleaned, the mother dog and pups reunited, everybody fed and checked and we could finally sit down, have a beer and pat ourselves on the back. Job well done!
