Life with the Chief

We've had a few days here at home to get to know Sarawat. She's great! She fits so well into our life and home here in Bangkok.

She is a very cuddly dog. We tend to spend a lot of our time in the evenings sitting on two big pillows on the floor of our den, watching TV or just talking with each other. Within an hour of arriving at our place, she found a place between us on the pillows and snuggled in.

However, before we could do a lot of snuggling, we had to work on ticks. She’d been living outside at the SCAD adoption center, and like all of the dogs there, she had many ticks. The volunteers do what they can to keep the dogs tick-free, but it's a neverending battle. In the first 48 hours we must have pulled 50 ticks off of her. Her blood work showed that she is anemic, with a very low platelet count. That's almost certainly the fault of the ticks. Fortunately, she’s very good about lying still and allowing us to pull them off.


We'd been told that her foster owners from SCAD had allowed Sarawat to sleep in the bed with them. We weren’t keen on that, so we had two options for her -- either her crate or a dog bed at the foot of our bed. On her first night, she tried three times to get into bed with us. The third time, she leapt right between us and was already snuggled into the pillows before we could react. We held firm, though, and forced her off. At that point, she gave up and slept on her own bed at our feet. Since then, she’s been happy to sleep there and stay quiet until we decide to get up.

We walk her twice a day -- about 30-45 minutes in the morning and 45-60 minutes in the evening. The traffic around our neighborhood is terrible, but she's very good about listening to us and following our lead. We’ve had to be pretty creative about finding places where she can walk comfortably.


The Thais in our neighborhood are starting to recognize us. Women and children especially like Sarawat. A number of kids have come up to us to pet her, and Sarawat has been lovely with them. Our maid (who comes a couple of times a week) likes her, too, but she has one complaint: "She sleep too much."




She's not a perfect dog, of course. She can be little picky about what she eats, isn't so sure about mirrors and canals, and can be a little aggressive when meeting other dogs. However, all of this is stuff we can work through.

She can't wait for you to come visit!