THE dog looked up from mothering her six pups and growled as the dog catcher came just a little too close.

She was obviously ready to attack what she saw as a threat to her pups.

The dog catcher, Nok, backed off to a safe distance and produced a blow-pipe.

He fitted a small dart and fired at the still snarling bitch.

The dart struck home, and within a few seconds, the once-dangerous dog was sedated, all the fight gone from her.

Nok, who works with the Soi Dog Foundation, didn?t want to hurt the dog.

He only wanted to make sure she and her pups were all right.

A quick examination revealed the dog and her pups were all in amazingly good health, apart from a minor skin disorder on the hind leg of one of the pups.

The dogs were living under a tin workman?s shack on a building site in Karon and it appeared the workmen had been feeding and caring for them.

Phuket?s increasing stray dog population is causing problems on the island, and authorities are determined to stamp out any chance of rabies becoming rampant.

In a country where vets will not euthanise animals, except in extreme circumstances, the number of dogs on the island is rising rapidly.

There are more stray dogs in Thailand than almost anywhere else in the world.

John Dalley of the Soi Dog Foundation said euthanasia was contrary to Buddhist beliefs.

?Sick or stray dogs are not put down in Thailand, and they are allowed to live as long as possible, regardless of their health or life expectancy,? he said.

But authorities realise the rising dog population is causing problems, and they are worried there could be an outbreak of rabies unless something is done to curb the numbers.

Although the last recorded case of rabies on the island was back in 2003, they are determined to stamp out any possibility of a new outbreak, and have embarked on a bid to vaccinate every dog on the island.

They also want to microchip every dog.

Dr Sumej Mettasart, the head of Phuket?s Provincial Livestock Office, said a massive vaccination programme was already under way, with free clinics offering free sterilisations and micro-chipping.

But with scores of stray dogs on the island, the task of vaccinating each one is no easy feat.

?The rising number of soi dogs is causing health problems, and the best solution is to take preventative measures to stop new births, to provide free rabies vaccines, and to micro-chip as many dogs as possible.?

The Rawai Tambon Municipality, the PPLO, Phuket?s Provincial Health Office, and private bodies including vets and dog catchers from the Soi Dog Foundation, recently ran a three day clinic at Nai Harn, offering free vaccinations and micro-chipping.

The promotion was paid for by the Rawai Tambon Municipality and the Ministry of the Interior.

A similar one-day clinic was organised by Rassada Municipality?s District Mayor, Suratin Liangudom.

Local dog owners were asked to bring their identification cards and house registration documents to receive the free treatments, and even a few expats turned up with their dogs, their passports and their household rental agreements.

All dog-owners were offered free sterilisations, rabies inoculations and micro-chips.

The micro-chips carry proof that the animals have had their rabies vaccinations as well as owner tracking information.

The average charge for a rabies vaccination at a private clinic is 300 baht and a micro-chip costs 800 baht.

The micro-chipping initiative has been a long time coming.

In January last year, the Ministry of Public Health decreed that all dog owners had to register their pets with local municipalities, and that all dogs coming into Phuket had to be vaccinated against rabies.

Dog owners who refuse to have their animals micro-chipped or vaccinated can be jailed
for six months, or fined up to 10,000 baht.

But Mr Dalley said the law is almost impossible to enforce.

?I have written to one of Thailand?s major airlines to ask them to stop bringing dogs to Phuket,? he said.

?Large numbers of dogs are bred in Bangkok?s puppy farms and flown to Phuket where they are sold at markets.

?These dogs are not microchipped or vaccinated, and something must be done to stop these puppy farms breeding so many dogs when we already have a stray dog problem.?

A total of 230 un-tagged dogs were vaccinated and micro-chipped at the Nai Harn mobile clinic.

Dr Ming from the Soi Dog Foundations said she spayed 30 dogs in one day.

Dr Sumej said the microchipping programme would make it easier for local municipalities to penalise dog owners who did not take proper care of their animals, abandoned them or mistreated them.

He said the owner and animal information, sterilisation accreditation and the number of animals spayed at the three-day clinic would be used to build up a database of dog owners in Rawai.

?Local municipalities and the PPLO want to re-write the laws covering animal health care in Phuket, so they can have more control over things,? he said.

?But to do that we have to present a case to the Ministry of the Interior, for which we need accurate assessments of the costs involved, the time it will take, and a general consensus from the public that the micro chipping and vaccination promotions
are working.?

The Rassada and Rawai municipalities estimate there are more than a 1000 dogs with owners and 300 stray dogs in the two districts.

But the microchipping plan has come under fire over who will be issued with the hand held scanners needed to read the newly implanted micro-chips.

?There are many different kind of microchips used to tag dogs and many different scanners to read them,? said Russell Russell, a volunteer at the Phuket Animal Welfare Society (PAWS).

?For a project like this to work, all private vets, animal welfare foundations and vets from local authorities need to use the same scanning and tagging system.

PAWS does not currently have any of the scanners they need to read the micro-chips implanted by PPLO veterinarians.

?If a PAWS volunteer finds a dog in the street, he would have no way of knowing if the animal was tagged or not,? said Mr Russell.

At the Soi Dog Foundation shelter in Nai Yang, vets, Dr Suwat and Dr Ming microchip every dog that comes into the shelter.

Shelter Manager, Atiporn (Toey) Jittanonta said the foundation?s four dog catchers had only one hand-held micro-chip reader between them, but they didn?t take it with them when they went out onto Phuket?s streets looking for soi dogs.

?Their priority is find dogs that need sterilising,? she said.

?Our dog catchers know which dogs have been sterilised because their ears are tattooed when they are spayed,? she said.

The foundation?s dog catchers only use blow-pipes to fire tranquiliser darts at feral dogs which appear dangerous, or are likely to attack them, and they rely on tips from the local community to find sick and stray dogs.

They nurse the sick dogs back to health, administer vaccines, de-sex them and microchip them.

Both Soi Dog Foundation and PAWS try to re-habilitate the dogs back into the community or find people in Phuket, greater Thailand or overseas to adopt them.

Soi Dog Foundation dogcatcher, Nok, said he often finds dogs which have been shot or poisoned.

?Some people mix rat poison in food and then feed it to the soi dogs,? he said.

?The dogs die a horrible, painful death.?

The Soi Dog Foundation?s mobile clinic at Khao Lak provides as many free sterilisations as possible to deter people from poisoning problem dogs.

Mr Dalley said when dogs were shot or poisoned, people rarely came to help them.

?A major problem is having so many ?pseudo owners?, in Phuket,? he said.

?Restaurant and shop owners will feed a stray dog and let it hang around, but then as soon as it has an accident or needs medical attention, they look the other way.
?That?s when we get called in,? he said.

He said stray dogs were picked up and taken away to be spayed, vaccinated and micro-chipped, and taken back the next day to where they were found.

?We also make sure we take them back to where we got them,? he said.

?That way they are back in familiar surroundings, and they don?t suffer the stress of being taken away to a new area.?

The Soi Dog Foundation is currently looking after more than 200 dogs.

If you see a dog in trouble or would like to sponsor or adopt a needy dog, call PAWS
on 076 264 504 or visit www.phuket-animal-welfare.com, or to contact the Soi Dog Foundation, call 0817 884 222 or visit www.soidog.org