RUFF UPBRINGING

Boy, 8, Raised by Dogs in ‘Drug-Infested’ Home Can Only Bark

The child was discovered after a welfare check exposed his mother, who was abusing drugs.

Authorities in Thailand were shocked to discover an 8-year-old boy who could only bark after he was neglected by his mother and left to interact primarily with the family’s six dogs. Local police were conducting a welfare check when they came across the boy living with his brother, 23, and mother, 46, in a “drug-infested” home in the rural Lap Lae District in the province of Uttaradit. “He didn’t speak; he just barked. It was pitiful to see,“ said Paveena Hongsakul, president of the Foundation for Children and Women, which helped with the rescue effort. Although his mother had received a stipend to send him to school, she kept him at home. The mother, who tested positive for drug use, was only busted after neighborhood teacher Sophon Siha-ampai sounded the alarm. Social workers have placed the boy in a children’s home, where he ”will be given a chance at a good life." “We’ll follow up with him to make sure he gets everything he needs,” said a representative from the local Foundation for Children and Women.