Dogs in shirts

Most people in Thailand live in a soi or lane. Most dogs in Thailand live down a soi also and are not surprisingly called soi dogs. Although I have heard stories to the contrary I find most of these dogs very passive and polite. They get on with their lives - just hangin' out mainly, and you get on with yours. Most are in fairly good shape and usually quite intelligent. Our soi happens to be next to a very busy highway. I suspect one of our soi dogs has a girlfriend across this highway. Naturally he uses the footbridge to cross the road. I also used to think these dogs were strays as they tend to just wander around the area. However a recent holiday up north convinced me otherwise.

Thailand is a tropical country. However we still have three seasons - hot, wet and cold. At the moment it is the cold season - OK 'cool' season and in Bangkok it can get down to the low twenties (centigrade that is). Further north it can get into the teens - really cold to Thais - especially Thai dogs. On this holiday (to the ancient capital Sukhotai and then on to Chiang Mai) I noticed the usual soi dogs - but well over half of them were wearing T-shirts!! And I must say a lot of them looked rather sheepish about it even though they still went about their usual business. Talking of which with so many dogs roaming the streets - how come I never see any "dogs' business" on the street. But I guess that's the subject of another blog.