Dogs, cats, cows, and goats

Before I begin, I think it is only fair to warn you that this post will contain some veterinary references that might make it rather boring in some parts.  Feel free to skip those as they will be clearly marked.

My day begins at 7:30am when I wake up, shower, get dressed, and meet the other two volunteers for breakfast.  There is a little restaurant right next to our hotel that serves a pretty decent breakfast, so we tend to trudge over there because it saves time in the morning.  After a breakfast of chai and something involving a banana (banana porridge, pancake, or toast with banana) we meet the volunteer coordinator, Radhe and one other person who drive us to TOLFA on the back of their motorbikes.  Weaving through the bazaar is sometimes more than a little nervewracking, but once we get out of town the bike is a great way to enjoy the scenery.  The hills all around are absolutely beautiful even though everything is a bit barren right now.  That should all change in about a week when the rains arrive and cool things off (hopefully). There is hardly anyone else around and we tend to see more goats than people on the road to the clinic.  

Once we arrive there is about a half hour of walking the dogs, then a chai break, and then down to the business of the day. My first week, I was assigned to dog treatments, which involves things like giving antibiotics, cleaning wounds, taking temperatures and generally just making sure that everyone is doing well. 

VET REFERENCE:  One really interesting thing here is that they have a lot of TVT.  I've seen at least 6 in the time that I have been here.  It is really amazing how locally invasive they are and yet how well they respond to treatment.  It was funny to see so many since it was something that was just kind of brushed over in class as something that we would probably never see.  The other thing is that Dr. Holt would be less than pleased with the clinic's use of "debride and lavage" although most things seem to heal rather well.  I'm constantly thinking that we need to be cutting back tissue that looks dead, but an almost always told that it's not necessary. Also, nearly everything heals by second intention but is left open while healing because they don't have the bandage equipment necessary to make a proper bandage.  The only things that we have are cotton and gauze. END VET REFERENCE

When I was told that working at TOLFA would not be like working at home, I greatly underestimated the lack of resources that they have. I assumed that there would be no imaging, but I had no idea that there wouldn't even be a microscope.  It makes it very difficult to diagnose even the most simplest of diseases like ear mites or mange, so every time they treat an animal they have to treat every potential thing that could be causing the disease. A woman is coming in a few months to help them set up a kind of field laboratory, which will be immensely helpful.

One thing that I noticed while doing dog treatments was that most of the men who work at TOLFA were absolutely petrified of the few cats that we have.  It turns out that most people in India don't keep cats as pets, so they aren't really taught anything about them in vet school and they rarely have to handle them.  Luckily I was able to prove to the guys that the cats at TOLFA are actually very nice, so they are receiving treatments a little more gently. The other problem is that cat food is very expensive, so there isn't a whole lot of it. This means that the cats are fed other things that really aren't normally part of a cat diet. Most of them are slightly anemic because of it.  We have been trying to get them some meat, but so far have met with no success. 

My hour is up, so I will have to continue some other time.