The travels and tales of Ping

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Well, since this will be another adventure with outcomes optimistically promising, I thought I would blog about Dave and I bringing Ping, our little Thai pup home from Thailand to live happily ever after with us and our little pack of animals.

After our beloved Ava passed away this past January, Dave and Sea-B and I were all just so sad. She was such a light in our lives and we still miss her every day. Not that Eros didn't miss her presence, he put out a search party for at least a week after she was gone. He would march around the yard, sniffing and looking, come back inside and an hour later, go look again. Then after she didn't turn up, he called off the search and went back to his normal routine. Sea-B on the other hand, misses her friend. She wants someone to play with and cuddle up with and Eros just isn't the one for this job.

I had been searching the internet looking for the perfect companion for all of us and was frankly all over the board. There was that day I almost bought a mastiff puppy, and then there was that day I almost bought a 2200 golden retriever pup. I could go on and on with all of the near purchases that I made, but my intuition said that it wasn't time, it wasn't right, and to wait.

Dave and I had been planning this trip to Thailand and the last time I went I fell in love with the Thai street dogs. They would happily escort you wherever it was that you were going, with a big Thai street dog smile and a skip in there step. They look like orangey brown foxy dogs, usually around 45-60 lbs. I told Dave how I loved them and that they adopted dogs at the Elephant nature park and that we should take a look while we were there.

I wasn't sure what the process might be, or how expensive, or if these poor dogs would have to be quarantined once they arrived to the United states. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn't all that expensive and in fact there was no quarantine for the dogs, at that point, the search was on!
There are 450 dogs that they have rescued at the Elephant Nature park. The dogs are in large enclosures in "Packs" witch made total sense, they had a dog family to be a part of, they were relatively relaxed and defiantly happy to have human visitors when you would go to play and hang out with the dogs. That made me think of the many visits to our humane society with each dog locked up alone, barking and anxious when anyone enters the room where they are. Why do we do this to these poor animals? Don't we all want contact with our own. It saddened me to think about it.

After a couple of days and visits Ping (formerly Blitzen) a four month old pup seemed to be "the one" Although I could have picked a hundred dogs, he seemed sweet, engaged and happy to be with us, and we liked that he was young, Sea-B would be thrilled and Eros could boss him around. They put him in with cats too, and he was a respectful good boy with them.

It is funny, as soon as we made the commitment to adopt Ping, he became ours in my mind. I didn't want to leave him behind, and we talk about how excited we are to get him home at last.

Pups need to be 4 months old to be eligible for adoption, then need to get fixed and chipped and wait for a volunteer to escort them back to a international airpot somewhere near us. I think about my little buddy having to make that long flight, and I hope he can forgive me that, I will make it up to him with a lifetime of love.

When asked why adopt a dog there instead of my own backyard, I hope that by giving Ping a home, there will be another space for another Thai dog to take at Elephant Nature Parks dog project, and that it will be one less dog in the meat industry. I was sent a petition yesterday that said the more the dog was tortured the higher the quality the meat was. I don't know how true this is, but the thought is too much to bear, and if I can make a difference even a little one (Ping means little) then I will.

Until next time, I will wait for an email from Sabrina at the Elephant Nature park to let me know when we can get our boy home!

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Photos

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Little Ping before he met us.

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He warmed up very quickly

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He gave us that Thai dog smile, and that sealed the deal!

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We walked him and spent some time outside the kennel with him

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how could you resist?

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we already love you Ping!