We are having some very unusual amount of rain here in the southern part of Thailand, Nakhon Si Thammarat, but that’s not really what this is about. It’s about cats and dogs. Or maybe I should say dogs and cats because the dogs are much more friendly and dogs have become much greater friends than the cats, so the cats come second.
The Place I am staying, I am the only customer now except for an occasional day stopper, has two dogs and three or four cats. I’m not gonna spend too much time on the cats, not only because they’re fewer numbe but also because of what they did to tease my dog, DC, when I was living in Phuket, Thailand. Late at night the cats used to stand on top of the truck and make DC bark for hours on end, teasing him, showing him how they can jump up on the top of the car and he can’t. Total neighborhood mafia.
But I am friendly to cats and with cats if they abide by my rules. I certainly am not going to bend to their will and to allow them to use their evil nature to control and subdue me. But since I already said they ranked number two in my book let me get to the dogs.
Most houses have dogs they keep outside mostly in the front as guard dogs. And most of the people really don’t take great physical care of their dogs so they tend to get all sorts of problems that don’t get fixed especially abrasions and skin problems like mange. In the countryside there are not too many of the small yuppie dogs that actually resemble large rats more than they do dogs. That shows some of my prejudice but then I’ve had some experiences that make me feel that way. The last yuppie dog I had a run-in with i nicknamed football for an obvious reason which I’m sure you can guess. When a dog bites you, that’s the last straw.
So most of the dogs in the countryside tend to be medium size dogs, bigger than a beagle and smaller than a Labrador. That’s what they call the typical Thai dog which has blood lines from several different dog breeds including Ridgeback. But almost all the dogs here tend to be very mild tempered, kind of like the people, with A few exceptions.
Since I have been in Thailand for a number of years (not recently) I have some kind of sense of how to manage the typical dogs kept outside. They tend to be very friendly on the whole and there is a way to manage certain problems such as the motorcycle chasers.
One way to manage motorcycle chasers is to do what I don’t do and not what I saw a European fellow do a couple weeks ago and which I don’t recommend, is to kick at the dog and then stop the motorcycle and harass the dog. Knowing the dogs here tend to be very mild-mannered is the key to knowing how to manage dogs. Mild manner is also the general emotion of the motorcycle chasers. When I get one or two dogs chasing me and trying to bite at me I slow down and stop. The dogs stop pursuing me and sometimes slink away or in some cases just shy away slightly. If I see them slink away then I know they are not going to be easy to get to know. If they just shy away, I turn off my motorcycle, get off and crouch down, talking to the dog and holding out my hand palm upward. Most of the time the dog will come to me so I will pet it and find a place it’s itching and scratch it, and then we become friends. Sometimes we get down to Exchanging cat jokes and that is always hilarious. You haven’t lived until you’ve heard of a dog laugh it’s belly off at the joke about the three cats walking into the bar.
Just a few days ago I slowly passed by a house with a larger Labrador sized dog I made friends with, one that was chasing my motorcycle several times before. The dog came over and greeted me I started scratching her behind ear and places where I knew she was itchy. She proceeded to climb onto my scooter, standard 100 cc motorcycle in Thailand which in other countries is 50 cc (More about that later), and so, well, of course you know this wasn’t going in my planed direction.
By this time the little boy who’s dog it was came out of the house and was trying to talk with me but my kid Thai is not that good so I just said to him, a mistake, “go together“. Since I haven’t been in Thailand for a While, my Thai is a little rusty and I sometimes don’t say everything I mean to say. I was meaning to say “I can’t take her with me“. But all the words didn’t come out. So I think the little boy thought I wanted to steal his dog. Ever since I haven’t seen the dog outside. Well I got the dog off the motorcycle, scooter, and proceeded to the beach for my daily swim.
That’s kind of the long story of how to manage motorcycle chasing dogs in Thailand.
I have two good dog friends here, one small dog and one larger dog. The larger dog is very very friendly, a short hair, so when I help her get that shedding hair out, which is very itchy, she just keeps asking for more. But there are limits to every good thing. Remember what happened to Oliver when he asked for “some more“?
The smaller dog is noisier than the big dog, which is very often the case with smaller dogs, from my experience at least. She’s a very good guard dog but sometimes even the slightest sound, A bird on the other side of the wall, will have her imagining thieves coming to steal her food and massacre all her friends.
I think I made a mistake and took a walk to the end of the dirt road with the two dogs. A couple days later they seem to get into their head that this was going to be a routine thing. But I found out later they normally just walk as far as next door which is a relative’s resort and then come back again. The problem is, even without me, they start going down the opposite direction to the end of the dirt road and encroaching on other dogs territories which means only one thing, mayhem. And now the small dog will walk ahead of the big dog, strutting her stuff and showing how powerful she is. But when another dog comes to clean the territory she runs way behind the big dog. So then the big dog gets into a conflagration. It turns into something like a typical Bar brawl where nobody gets really badly damaged, just damaged enough to feel they protected their precious reputation and territory.
So now I see the owner of the dogs walking the big one on a leash and not allowing her to go in the opposite direction. That’s what tipped me off, I had created an issue. So I just keep my mouth shut and stay friends with the dogs here inside the bungalow resort.
As for the cats, the black-and-white one doesn’t like to be touched but she will come into the room, sleep on my lap, and be content as anything. I like it best when cats are sleeping. We all know the end of the world could happen when all the cats decide to wake up and cause trouble.
The tabby, evidently, has been replaced. She is still here but the owner went to the temple and for some reason wound up with a new kitten that nobody wanted and the tabby became jealous and doesn’t want to be around the owner so the tabby wants to spend time with me. She loves to be petted and held and comforted but so far she hasn’t tried to sleep on my lap. The behavior of the two cats is tolerable and that’s the only reason I write about them. I am not hoping for a franchise hamburger shop to be set up in the small town. Not yet anyway.
To end on a Happy note, “As long as the roots are not severed, all will be well in the garden“. If you know that phrase you are truly an eclectic comedy lover. Hint – nope, not today.