7/4/2003: Thai dogs saluted

Sieg heil to this crew of stray dogs in Thailand! It turns out that this is part of a Thai program to round up and train stray city dogs and turn them into drug-sniffing border patrol dogs. So far, 50 of them have gone through the rigorous multi-week program.

It turns out that the Thai revere their dogs, and they don't kill strays, because they are Buddhists. It turns out that a book about one particular stray was last year's bestseller, making the dog a star. And it turns out that rounding up strays for police duty is cheaper than buying purebred police dogs from overseas.

full story

I wonder if Thailand trades with Korea?

There are some good looking dogs there and I bet they are smart or they wouldn't have survived on the streets.

Nice idea.

Wow, what a great idea, it makes me happy to read a nice story with a happy ending for our four legged friends. I've seen many of those stay dogs running the streets of Thailand, as probably you all have. It's a great idea, my hat goes off to the Thai Government for allowing this to take place, maybe Australia and other countries should do the same instead of sending our strays the the room of no return.

Yeah, there are a lot of stray dogs in Thailand (cats, too). But I was impressed with the kindness strangers showed to the animals, leaving food out for them. I read that the religion also forbids spaying and neutering. They will always have a lot of strays, but it's good to see them doing something useful with them.

While it appears as if they are saluting.. they may actually be just using a common hand signal for "down", or maybe you already all knew that.