Our final day at the Sports Complex, Betio has been very successful. The tally today: 34 male dogs, 17 female dogs, 3 male cats, 3 female cats, 5 male pigs, 1 eye enucleation. What a team effort between 4 vets and 4 nurses/vet techs. That is a lot of procedures!!
 |
| We were never shy to ask for assistance! |
 |
| Paige working with Temwa on a pig castration. |
 |
| Yes this is product placement, but Bayer did kindly donate some dog worming chews. These owners had their dog desexed last time and came back this time for medicine to keep their dog healthy as you cannot buy any worming medicine in the shops. |
 |
| Leesa had a fan club of many children. This child gave her a parting gift for desexing their dog! |
 |
| Yesterdays patient, todays audience come to check out the action wearing her AMRRIC collar which were kindly donated by AMRRIC (and were VERY popular!) |
 |
| We did desex some small male puppies and a few small females although their survival is questionable at this age. |
 |
| Recovery mat was a mobile mass of bodies all day. |
 |
| Lots of laughs with the kids. They enjoyed the spectacle too! |
Needless to say we were fairly pooped but finished the day singing with the children, enjoying their enthusiasm and laughter.
Some of the US Navy team have been taking a few dog blood
samples while we are here which is really interesting information to have. They have a snap test which tests for Ehrlichia
canis, Lyme disease, Anaplasma, and Heartworm. Of approximately 20 samples all
were negative. And
blood films will be examined later for
parasites. Other diseases or health issues we have seen include ticks, fleas,
lice, cat flu, broken teeth, undernutrition, excessive bleeding during surgery
possibly due anemia and hypoproteinemia (severe parasitism?), we presume intestinal worms (potbellies), fly
bitten ears, diarrhoea…we are learning as we go. No obvious leatherbacks but
fur on dogs has been patchy, some with presumably old burn wounds. Pigs have
had diarrhoea and they generally let you know they are arriving from a long way
off by their squealing.....One arrived today in an empty rice bag!
Still in our dirty clothes from the day (and smelling quite delightful!), we were taken to dinner by George and Denise who work for the Australian government here on Tarawa. It was interesting to hear first hand the issues (plenty!) on Tarawa as well as just time to chat about the fishing competition tomorrow night - weigh in is at 5pm sharp, and boats can leave at 12am...that is 17 hours on the water, many in the searing sun going fishing??? Let's see what they catch, but work is still on tomorrow first.
This is my third attempt to post!
ReplyDeleteGood on you Allison! Dad and I hope that all goes well and that you achieve a lot for the animal and human populations on Kiribati........And that the internet problems improve so that you can blog efficiently. Your Blog is very interesting! Love, Mum and Dad
My comment disappeared too! But...well done. What an amazing result and up and running so efficiently and so quickly. Press on with the great work. And I hope the reunions along the way are sweet.
ReplyDeleteMx
Beryl K here! Glad you can have a bit of time off to renew old friendships and make new ones. I hope you got to taste one or two of the fish caught Saturday! They looked most impressive. We are enjoying reading about your exploits, and are glad that the locals appreciate what you are doing.
ReplyDelete