Day 9- Tarzan is going to Canada, and I'm going to a party! Happy days!

Morning shift.. Freakin' hot!

Today was a big day for one of the LAW dogs, Tarzan. He has been adopted by a family in Canada and has been waiting for a flight home for weeks. (I'll do a separate post about flying the animals out of Thailand and 'flight volunteers' at a later date). So, today was the day that Tarzan gets to start his journey to his new life in Canada. Matt, the centre manager had to drive him to Phuket, from there Tarzan will be flown to Bangkok, and from there to Canada. Tarzan is going backpacking!

After saying goodbye to Tarzan, the three legged, backpacking dog, we did all the usual jobs then walked a full group of dogs together. It was nice to take so many dogs out at once as they usually only walk in pairs, I think they enjoyed it, and it was nice to get to know some of the other volunteers better too.

Lanta Animal Welfare is one of the top tourist attractions on Koh Lanta. Tourists can come to the centre, take a tour of the premises, play with the cats, and walk the dogs.  Most of the dogs are fine to be walked by tourist, there are 2 or 3 who, for one reason or another, can only be walked by us.

The dogs are split in to groups, or packs. This is to avoid fights. The packs never mix. Only dogs from the same pack can be walked together. There are two routes to chose from when walking, either to the river, (which is dry at the minute), or to the beach, (much more fun!). When a dog goes out on a walk, either with one of us or a tourist, we make a note on the white board of which route they have taken. If a dog from one pack has gone to the beach , only dogs from the same pack can go that way. This is to avoid different packs meeting each other whilst out on walks and fighting in the street- not classy!

I enjoyed the rest of my shift, afterwards I went for lunch with some of the other volunteers and then came back to the centre to do my laundry, again! I seem to spend half of my time here washing my clothes! As I'm backpacking, I don't have many clothes with me, and once I've worn something once to work in it needs washing. Sweat, dirt and dog shit is not a good look, or smell!

After work we got take away and ate at the centre, then headed out to a pool party that we had been invited to... My first party on Koh Lanta... Finally!!!  I've been in Thailand a while now, I know how this works... There's not a chance you can attend a pool party an not end up in the pool, so more or less as soon as we got there I striped to my bikini and jumped in. Some of the others managed to stay dry for a couple of hours, but inevitably everybody ended up in he water, some full clothed. This was my first decent night out on Koh Lanta, it was fun and I laughed until I thought I was going to throw up! I'm really starting to like it here, i'm glad I decided to stay.