My name is Coke.

January 2015

   

Check out this awesome video of Coke’s first morning at Soot’s house – a natural! It touched our hearts to see it. We are so very grateful to Soot for all she has done for this deserving little boy. Coke’s life has made a complete 180-degree turn because he intersected with this angel on earth, who steered him in a course that seemed impossible five years ago and even as recently as a few months ago, when Coke’s fate appeared to be nothing but an unendurable and lengthy life in a very small cage.

 

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My name is Coke.

My story began nearly five years ago when I was born in the streets on the outskirts of Bangkok. Our area attracts many drifting immigrants looking for work. Unfortunately, a large number of these people hail from neighboring nations where eating dogs is commonplace – and even if I managed to evade being captured for the illegal dog meat trade, I still had to contend with busy traffic, street dog packs which are dangerous to cross, and the occasional malicious human. Concerned for my safety and with few alternatives in our area, someone – no one even remembers who, because it was so long ago – brought me here to the Wat Suan Keaw (WSK)’s so-called Dog Condo, approximately one hour outside of Bangkok. Though WSK’s two dedicated animal-loving caretakers – and recently, other helpers appointed by local organizations – have done their best to shelter the nearly 2000 of us who have been brought here over the years, it has been a gargantuan task. As a result, many of us unintentionally dwindle in miserable and perpetual confinement, often for our whole lives.

I was one of those dogs. For my entire life – so we are talking well over four full years here – I have been confined to a small cage with bent bars that is partially suspended off the ground on the second floor of the main building of the “dog condo”.

Yes, you heard that right…when I say partially suspended, I mean – I literally look down through the wire cage bars cutting into my tender feet and see hundreds of other dogs roaming fifteen feet below me on the ground outside the building. My cage moves in strong winds or when it gets jumped on by other dogs. I live in terror that one day the ropes holding me in place will break, and down I will tumble…

I am gentle, sweet, and playful – a delight for all who meet me – but not conducive to my own safety when in the presence of hundreds of stronger, more dominant dogs. Here, kibble is sometimes scattered haphazardly on the soiled concrete ground, so dogs with food aggression issues often target meek, small dogs like me. The WSK staff think it safer and healthier for me to stay confined most of the time, as so many of us do. And even when they open my door, I stay right near the safety of my cage, almost never venturing more than a few feet from it since I am too frightened to explore much further after a few scary experiences.

Because there are hundreds and hundreds of us and never enough time for us all, my teetering cage has become my tiny, cramped jail. I basically live in or just outside it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, except on the very rare occasion when one of the handful of WSK volunteers has a spare second free to take me out for a momentary cuddle, or to cut off some of my terrible matts (my hair coat is not conducive to this kind of life)…

…but then I have to return to my “prison” when it’s time for them to go home again. I am in this same cage still. Even during the infrequent times when I am given a chance to exercise in the “safe” area for puppies and small dogs in a specific portion of the building, I am behind bars. And that area, while a vast improvement over my cage, is sadly not much bigger than my everyday space. So there again, I can’t do much but be by myself and watch the second floor world go by through chain link, for the brief and rare moments I am there.

Love, Coke

For more information about adopting Coke – or any of our available dogs – please contact Dawn Trimmel at (414) 426-4148. Thank you!

Located in south-central Thailand, Wat Suan Kaew (WSK) translates into the Glass Garden Temple. The thing is, nobody calls it that anymore – they just call it “Thailand’s dog condo”. And the temple is no longer renowned for its good works, as it once was – but instead is regarded as a place to dump unwanted dogs and cats.

For us Westerners, the word ‘condo’ conjures up images of a condominium: a beautiful, high-end building resembling an apartment – except units are owned, not rented, and lovingly tended to. However, the only resemblance the dog condo bears to the real thing is the way its residents live stacked in vertical columns. The ‘condo units’ are just the small, and often rusty, cages in which many of WSK’s dog and cat inhabitants tragically live their whole lives.