Elephant Nature Park

Be warned. This is a picture heavy post. If you don't agree with photos of cute dogs, turn back now. 

SO. I just finished my week of volunteer work and I can whole heartedly say that it's been one of my best overseas experiences. I will also say that I am glad that I went with the dog shelter side of the park rather than the elephants.

But first! Pictures of elephants. (And fellow tourists from Davis! Because the world is a small place!)

And baby elephants eating watermelon.

And elephant family groups under a shade structure.

And cows eating bananas. Because Thailand? 

Might as well start with some back story about the park. It was founded awhile back by a Thai woman called Leik who was trying to educate locals and tourists about the torture involved with training an elephant. For every elephant that you ride, it has had to go through various beatings and assaults in order to get it to obey its trainer (called a mahout, pronounced ma-hoot). Mahouts traditionally use sticks with nails and bull hooks to stab the elephant's sensitive feet, ears, and eyes as punishment. The training is long and meant to break their spirit. You can't ride an elephant that hasn't gone through this; it's too dangerous because there is no control over the animal.

As fun as it may seem, if you're concerned with animal well-being, don't ride an elephant if you're in Southeast Asia (or anywhere). For that matter, don't encourage street vendors that parade elephants through cities for people to feed or take photos with.

So Leik started rescuing elephants that were too old, battered, or emotionally unstable to perform and taking them out to areas where they could roam relatively free. Elephant Nature Park (ENP) is a big open space next to a river where the elephants wander during the day. At night, most are put into large open shelters so that they don't go onto neighbors property; some of the locals are not as excited when an elephant comes into their yard and eats their fruit or garden. Leik and her western husband also have more than a dozen water buffalo, cows, monkeys, pigs, cats, and multitudes of dogs that were rescued when Bangkok flooded. Except for the monkeys and 75% of the dogs, the rest roam the property.

They host paying volunteers to come work for the elephants, the dog shelter, or the animal clinics. For your payment, you get a bed, 3 vegetarian buffet-style meals a day, and some special cultural presentations from the Thai neighbors. The presentations can be quite cheesy, but at the end of the day, everybody would just gather on the feeding platforms and hang out with a cup of tea or a beer. The conversation flows freely after dark when the kittens crawl in your lap and the sound of elephants and the howls of dogs come across the fields.

The typical dog volunteer schedule is as follows:

0500  Wake up to all four hundred dogs howling.

0600  Curse dogs and the fact that the volunteer quarters are right next to the dog runs.

0630  Climb out of bed, be followed by free roaming dogs to the feeding platform, enjoy a cup of tea and watch the sunrise. 

0700  Breakfast. Hope for banana bread fritters.

0800  Go to the dog clinic and start walking injured dogs. Also, clean cages, morning feed, bleach & rinse floors, cuddle dogs, take care of any injured cats, help with morning medications, clean up puppy area, and walk all special behavior dogs like...

THE MOUNTAIN DOGS

The cutest and fiercest teddy bears around.

Around 0930  Special chores like walking entire runs of dogs with multiple people, deticking, grooming, cuddling, etc

1100  Break & lunch

1230  Midday clinic dogs' walk

1300  More random chores or projects. Dog cuddles.

1500  Afternoon feeding and walk.

1600  Second round of meds, rinse floors, clean food bowls, put on nighttime doggie jackets.

Done around 1630 but cuddle dogs until closer to 1700. Dinner at 1800.

It's not a bad life. And if you didn't get your fill during the day, we lived with about ten dogs. Dog fights are frequent, although most don't end with physical injury and only hurt feelings. We all became pretty adept at throwing ourselves in when necessary and hanging back most of the time. The dynamics are incredibly complicated. Most of the runs have formed into a pack and some of the larger ones even have small break off groups that rival one another. With the exception of maybe one dog, all were so sweet towards people. You were covered in kisses the whole time and the shy ones never made any trouble.

There was one who resembled a corgi, so of course, I had to snap a photo. This handsome boy was so tolerant when it was his turn to have ticks pulled off with tweezers from between his toes and on his belly.

Meet Tito. All he wants is to be chewing on your fingers. Or your shoelaces. Or another dog.

This is Gladius. She fully embraced her cone of shame as a privacy shield. 

And Mae Nam! Overall volunteer favorite to walk. As Brian said, "an oversized hamster!"

My roommate Morten posing with one of the mountain dogs.

Morten getting a coveted job: putting the little pig jacket on one of the itty bitty puppies. Curse you, Morten!

Kitten snuggles with you whenever she wants. Even mid-meal.

And of course, the whole dirty group of us for this week! Brian, Becca, Morten, and myself right before leaving.

But there is some news. I am a weak willed person given to impulse which does not go well when I meet a wonderful dog. She's the one on the left. The shelter calls her Mate (like the tea, ma-teh). But Kermit is much more fitting.

The adoption program has agreed to ship her over to the US in the spring after I finish my travels and job training.

So, uh. Yeah. I agreed to adopt a dog. And she's amazing. (And Mom, I think she's ok with cats.)