Located on the outskirts of Chiang Mai, the hotel is surrounded by lush rice fields and deep green mountains. It’s a great place, the scenery is outstanding although there is a lot of rain and it’s incredibly humid. Today was our first day at the shelter and Karin, Emma and Ally are doing a fantastic job. The biggest thing that struck me straightaway was the happy vibe of the 130 dogs at the shelter and that Karin has gone to the huge effort of trying to ensure each pen has enough ‘activities’ to occupy the dogs. I think dogs like height and one aspect of the big pens is that they all have raised platforms which the dogs can climb up or go under according to preference. Too many shelters or pens are all on one level and a split level is definitely the way forward.

There are some very severe TVT cases to look at, a few sick ones – one I think has concurrent heartworm and it has been a day to find our feet and get to know everyone. My gut feeling is that it is going to be a great trip.