Mango Unleashed: A Thai Rescue Dog Travels The World

Sherrie McCarthy

Mango Unleashed: A Thai Rescue Dog Travels The World

Copyright © 2020 by Sherrie McCarthy

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Contents

Prologue: Berlin, January 2013

1. Chapter 1: Enter The Mango

2. Chapter 2: A New Life Starts

3. Chapter 3: Hello Northern Thailand

4. Chapter 4: A Flawed Approach To Malaysia

5. Chapter 5: Bangkok & Take Off

6. Chapter 6: Canada

7. Chapter 7: The United States Of America

8. Chapter 8: Cruising The West Coast

9. Chapter 9: Turning Inland: Death Valley and The Southwest

10. Chapter 10: Make A U-Turn In Austin & Head For The Border

11. Chapter 11: Home – Both The Canadian & German Varieties

12. Epilogue

Motorcycle Videos & Maps Oh My!

A Note From The Author

About the Author

Prologue: Berlin, January 2013

At pushing nine months pregnant, I am what my partner Patrick lovingly calls a stomach with arms and legs. And now this stomach with arms and legs is in the middle of a snowy field with her otherwise (relatively) well-behaved dog pinned under her. I have just spent almost an hour trying to get him back on his leash and have succeeded only by resorting to a football tackle. Neither dog nor pregnant lady is happy with the situation and the various onlookers are also in various states of reaction – from shock (from either the tackle, the fact it was a pregnant lady who did it, or that the dog is still pinned beneath her) to choking back their laughter. It is fair to say that since it is not even 9:30 am yet, neither my, nor Mango’s, day has started overtly well.

It started innocently enough. Just like every other morning we, as in Mango and I, headed off with Patrick. We walk him halfway to work before turning around and heading back. Mango gets his first walk of the day in and I get fresh air before settling in to write. (Mango normally allows me about 4 hours of uninterrupted writing time before he insists we hit the local dog park mid afternoon). This morning I needed to pick up translated documents required for registering the upcoming birth of my child. And so we said goodbye to Patrick and headed off to pick them up.

Mango is normally off leash on his walks, as 99% of even the most tempting of pleasures are deterred with an oi! His obedience is rewarded with a treat. There is one thing I have learned about Mango and that is although you can take the dog off of the street, you can’t take the street out of the dog. He is a scavenger, and no amount of good food and love will take that away from him. Also, he loves to roll in dead things. And this morning he had found the remains of a creature in a particularly advanced state of decay in a bush we passed. So far advanced that I still can not tell you what the creature once was, other than in life it had had fur. Such a pleasure can not be avoided, especially when said treasure lies deep enough in a set of bushes that Mango would have been hard pressed to listen even if I did not have over 30 extra pounds on. Given that most of said extra pounds ensured I could barely tie my shoes let alone crawl through bushes to murder my dog and that - much more importantly - Mango was well aware of this and you have a situation equivalent to trusting a recovering crack addict to ignore that pile of crack in the middle of the room as you excused yourself for the next 3 hours. Mango’s eyes rolled back into his head as he rolled in the mystery carcass as I just stomped my feet and yelled. An effective method of getting any dog to listen to you, as the dog owners among you already know.

As my anger and disgust rose, as much from the feeling of impotence as from the knowledge that I would need to remove that filth later, I gave into blind rage and crashed into the bushes in what must have resembled a deranged wildebeest to retrieve my dog.

Mango is not stupid. Just as he had bet that he was fairly safe in being able to act out his indulgence unmolested, now that his calculation proved wrong he understood that this would end badly for him. The film of bliss evaporated from his eyes to be replaced with dread at the charging animal coming after him. And so like many a stubborn animal before him, he figured in for a penny, in for a pound. He then shot across the street and headed straight for the good life promised by the open field around the Planetarium - which also functions as an unofficial dog park. There, instead of listening to my demands to return to me, he budded up with a small terrier and they frolicked together while my rage increased.

This circus did not end until he came close enough that I could take him out at the knees with a tackle, get his leash back on him and almost cry from the stink that now permeated my winter coat. I have no idea what was worse, that I had honestly fantasized about killing my dog or the thoughts of the parasites that now took up residence in his fur and my coat. We were late picking up the documents. And as I allowed myself to catch my breath and tried to block out the implications of the smell emanating from his fur, I ask myself, as I often do, how did I end up here? And like those other times, I realize that even though the present situation is less than ideal, overall I would do it all again. Just without the unidentified dead thing bits being brought into my apartment – even if it was to be washed down my tub.

Introduction: A Little Background

I am a dog person. I love dogs. My family has always had a dog. I can not envision a family without a dog. Enter Patrick. Patrick has never had a dog. Patrick has never even had a pet. Whenever I point this out Patrick pipes up to declare that while growing up he did in fact have pet rabbits. But I counter this protest with my definition of a pet – namely that it excludes any animal raised with the intention to eat them. After knowing him for almost ten years, I had feared that he was serious and honest when he said he did not want a dog. The best I had got from him was that my family’s dog, Shaq, was cool. This seemed to be a one dog only opinion. Patrick felt that Shaq was unique and did not represent dogs. This was a problem. I was not always sure I wanted kids, but I always envisioned a dog in my life.

Patrick had valid concerns about dogs. Namely, he claimed that they bark too much, their poop is disgusting and he feels that all animals need a purpose in life. It is Patrick’s belief that without a job or something to give their lives meaning dogs become lost souls in a golden prison. I could only counter this with not all dogs bark all the time, I would clean up the poop and our dog’s purpose in life would be to love me. It did not really fly.

As things became serious with Patrick, we found that we shared many things that made me feel we would have a great shared life together. We both loved to travel and even more importantly we traveled well together. Rarely did I have an urge to hurl him off a mountain or a deep desire to disappear into the crowd - only to secretly circle back to the hotel and collect my stuff to escape him. This alone made me want to share my life with him. (I am an otherwise fairly independent traveler. When you find someone you enjoy spending 24 hours a day with, especially in new and sometimes stressful situations, you hold onto them tight. When that person believes that it is not a matter of an unachievable dream to spend months and even years at a time traveling but rather just smart saving and spending, you wrap tight around them and never let go.)

Although I accept nothing in life will be perfect, there was a giant dog shaped hole in my life. There is something about a dog that reminds you not to take life too seriously and to enjoy the simple things. Living in Germany was proving to be very stressful to my Newfoundland soul. I needed a dog. But even I agreed that it made no sense to get a dog before we went on a year long world trip on motorcycles. It would not be fair to adopt and then abandon a dog at a friend’s house. Although I had heard of people who traveled with their dogs and even met a couple in South America who were doing it, they were in a van and we were on motorcycles. This was before we had heard of Lorraine Chittock and her book Dogs Without Borders or that there were entire web sites devoted to dogs who ride. Given that one half of the partnership was anti-dog anyway, we did not look seriously into the idea and we quickly conclude that it was better to reopen the discussion once we returned.

And yet somehow we ended up with a dog in the middle of