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Give the dog a bone

January 29th, 2009

So here I am, one fine morning in Nai Harn, Phuket (Thailand), getting ready to go for a morning run with Elisabetta, when Scooby, a cocker spaniel from a few houses down the road, comes around and starts picking a fight with our friends’ Thai ridgeback, Caligola.

Caligola is a pretty big dog, but extremely friendly both towards humans and other dogs.

Scooby is a different story.

In any case, they’re at it tooth and nail and I’m starting to fear for Scooby’s health. Caligola is more than twice his size and much stronger and more agile. So, stupid me, I decide to intervene and try to pull Caligola off of Scooby (figuring Caligola is less likely to bite me). Dumb, dumb, dumb. Rule one of fighting dogs: don’t try to get between them unless you really know what you are doing. As soon as I took hold of Caligola, Scooby reached underneath Caligola and sank his teeth into my left shin. I managed to pry him loose and as other people stepped in to help, the dogs were finally separated.

Unfortunately for me, the damage was already done. One of Scooby’s canines had gone in all the way (about an inch) until it hit the bone. His other teeth left superficial scratches on my calf.

We immediately cleaned the wounds with peroxide and betadine, put on a provisional bandage, and went straight to the hospital. The surgeon there was impressed with the depth of the wound. After administering local anaesthetics, he opened up the wound and cleaned it out with saline solution and Betadine. Had I been in Holland, I’d have probably received stitches straight away and been told to come back a few days later to check for infection. However, in a climate such as Thailand, and me being a Farang, chances of infection are extremely high. So, doctors here generally don’t stitch up a wound immediately, but leave it open, cover it with gauze soaked in Betadine and bandage it, to be cleaned and changed daily until they are sure there is no sign of infection.

On top of that, I received tetanus and rabies shots and a bag full of antibiotics to be taken daily (and some painkillers, thankfully).

So, valuable lesson learned and pretty much the end of the holiday for me…

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Fotozondagavond #34: Holiday Mood

July 28th, 2008

Hah, just as the weather turned really nasty, Mjan picks “holiday mood” as the theme. Thanks! I pretty much gave up on this week’s theme, when lo and behold, this morning I saw this on my way to the office:

The sight of a Tuk Tuk gives me happy memories and gets me in a real holiday mood.

More holidaze:

• Mavrtje
• Mo6
• Mjan
• Capt.KRik
• Kootje
• Yvonne

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You say Poh Tay Toh

February 10th, 2008

Let’s call the whole thing off…

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Sofia

January 27th, 2008

Right around the time we got Caligola, a stray dog showed up and hung around our place. Being sentimental fools, we fed her a bit and gave her some attention, and what do you know? She just wouldn’t go away anymore.

Right from the start it was clear she was not a well-treated dog. Various fresh wounds and old scars showed that she probably received a beating or two, and judging by her very careful behaviour around humans, at least some of those beatings were at the hands of humans. However, she quickly felt at home at our place and because of her intelligent character we named here Sofia.

Since we didn’t know anything about Sofia’s background, we couldn’t risk infections, etc. so we had to keep Caligola away from her. This proved quite difficult. In the end we called on the Soi Dog Foundation to collect her for neutering and vaccination (which we paid for). A day later she was released back to us. The vet told us that Sofia was probably only about one year old. This came as somewhat of a surprise, because unlike Caligola, she showed no playful behaviour. She must have had a crappy first year indeed. In any case, the relationship between Caligola and Sofia was a bit tense for almost two days, most likely because Sofia needed rest and quiet, and Caligola was having none of that. It was also the first time we saw Sofia bare her teeth to put Caligola in his place. Instead of growling, however, Sofia emitted a high pitched whining.

After Caligola realised who is the boss, things improved quickly. Sofia’s surgical wound healed very quickly and both of the dogs have had their first round of vaccination. We now let them play together and they get along very well.

Our goal of finding a home for Caligola has now turned into finding a home for both dogs as they have become inseparable.

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Chocolate Chip Surprise

January 19th, 2008

So here I was, thinking I’d have myself a nice chocolate chip cookie. Just as well I checked before grabbing in the bag blindly…

Ah, hello there, little gecko! I decided my sugar buzz could wait… ;-)

The gecko jumped from the plastic container as I removed it, hung on to my shirt sleeve for a second and threw itself on the ground, landing with a splat, before running off and hiding under the fridge.

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Puppy Love

January 17th, 2008

The maid in our holiday appartment (see previous post) brought in this puppy.

The owners wanted to get rid of it and chances are it would’ve ended up abandoned before long. So, we kind of adopted the poor beast for the time being and have already found someone who is willing to take him in.

The pup is somewhere between two and three months old (too young to have been taken away from its mother) and a cross between a black labrador and a black “Thai” dog. In fact, he has inherited the trademarked ridge of Thai dogs on his back from his father.

Since we are staying in a house full of Italians, his name was quickly translated from “Black Black” to “Nerone” (emperor Nero) and then changed to that emperor’s uncle “Caligola” (emperor Caligula in original Latin). (“Nerone” and “Caligola” are the Italian names for the Roman emperors.)

I’m not sure whether the name determines the character, but little Caligola is a fierce biter. Of course, being a pup, his teeth are still developing so he hones them on any object in sight, including ankles, power cables and furniture.

On the bright side, though, he appears to be quite precocious, having already learned to do his “business” outside. During the night, he’ll usually whimper once to be let out for a moment for a quick pee. An occasional “accident” may occur, but usually he knows where and when to go.

We cannot take him to the beach yet and have to keep a close eye on him, since he is not vaccinated yet; when we first got him, he was running a fever the vet put him on a course of antibiotics first.

Despite his pretty crummy start in life, he’s very lively, curious and active. He has no fear of people and when it’s nap time, he loves to snuggle up to a warm body. It will be very hard to give him up, but it’s important to do sooner rather than later, before he becomes attached to us (right now, the world is Disneyland and everyone is Mickey Mouse).

Links:

• Monkey Pitchers!

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Luxury

January 17th, 2008

Here’s a view of the appartment we’re staying at in Baan Bua, Nai Harn on Phuket, Thailand.

The panorama photos were stitched toghether using hugin on Linux. As you can see the lighting is not very good, but the source images were shot with an Olympus μ700 camera. The camera allows some manual overrides, but exposure is not one of them. I’d love to upgrade to an E510, but, well, that’s quite a beast to lug around in your fanny pack.

Links:

• Monkey Pitchers!
• hugin Panorama photo stitcher

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... And then there was none.

March 29th, 2007

So there we were, on a short holiday in Italy. On Thursday, 22 March we decided to visit Ravenna together with a friend. Due to environmental regulations in that area, Thursday driving is restricted to cars with three people or more (and/or Euro-4 designation). Alas, our Fiat Stilo Abarth (2002) does not meet these criteria, but our friend offered to drive us. So at 11:00 we parked our car, among those of other carpoolers, on a parking lot just outside Castel S. Pietro, and drove to Ravenna with our friend.

Ravenna was nice. The weather was nice, the food was excellent (hey, it’s in Romagna – what do you expect?):

When we came back to the parking lot at 16:00 I noticed the doors of the car were unlocked and something seemed to be missing from the car. For reference, this is roughly what the interior should have looked like:

(“good”)

Unfortunately, this is what we found:

(“bad”)

It seems the thief (thieves?) managed to pry open the left rear door, climb into the front seat (leaving a footprint on the rear seat) and remove the stereo/navigation/etc. console. As far as I know, this thing only works in the Fiat Stilo Abarth, so they must have been on the lookout for this particular piece of equipment specifically. Seeing that this was the only item taken, that seems likely. They didn’t even search the rest of the car for other valuables.

Ah well, apart from this mishap, it was a nice day: we had a nice walk around Ravenna, ate some great piadine and, in Imola, saw a guy in a bar who could have been the twin brother of Al Pacino.