In Thailand even the dogs have tattoos

Today I finally met the woman who runs PACS, and she is a fire-ball of energy. You have to be because it is non-stop here.  There is a roster of volunteers to coordinate but most of the daily appointments are not scheduled in advance. They are a combination of emergencies and people who just show up with their animals (or don’t show up after saying that they will) which makes planning next to impossible.

Nevertheless, it seems to work. This morning volunteers arrived and busied themselves feeding, cleaning the kennels, doing laundry, “poo-picking” in the yard, dog-walking and emptying rubbish bins. There is always something to do.  

In the veterinary clinic, we started the day with a spay surgery on a young dog who was in heat. Normally vets do not like to perform this surgery on a dog in heat because there is higher risk of complications and bleeding. However, with so many dogs roaming free on the island any un-spayed female of reproductive age is highly likely to encounter an amorous male dog with the unfortunate consequence of a litter of unwanted puppies. So performing the surgery under less than ideal conditions is the lesser of two evils.

It was a new experience for me to do a surgery with no gas anesthetic and no monitoring equipment to indicate the heartrate, oxygen level in the blood, temperature and so on. There is not even an autoclave, which is a machine for sterilising instruments. Instead, the surgical instruments and surgical drapes are wrapped in tin foil and “cooked” in a toaster oven at 250 degrees Celsius! However, it is amazing what you can do without all of that fancy equipment, and it is a great learning experience for me.

Next up was a female cat brought in by some temple monks. When they arrived one of the male volunteers went out to greet them and to take the cat because apparently, the monks cannot give anything to a woman. Lacking any shared language, the monks indicated that they wanted the cat spayed by gesturing with a scissor cut motion in the genital area! We brought the cat in and prepared it for surgery. However, just before the surgery began the vet said to me “Check the cat’s left ear”. “It’s left ear? Why? What am I checking for?” I replied. “If she has a tattoo in her left ear then she has already been spayed”. I looked, and sure enough she had the tell-tale tattoo. The vet had noticed a faint scar on the cat’s abdomen and suspected that the cat had already been spayed. The cat had already been sedated but luckily the surgery had not yet begun. The monks clearly did not know about the left ear tattoo either!

Later in the day I got to do my first left-ear tattoo. We castrated a male cat and the ear-tattoo allows everyone to know that cat has been altered (although with males it is easier to visually check than with females but in some circumstances it is easier to see the inside of the ear than the dog or cats underside!) There is no standard marking so we just decided to put the number 23, to indicate the year of castration.

Aside from the surgeries there is lots to do. For example, there are two cats here both of which have paralysed back legs but we don’t know why. Not having access to any imaging equipment makes the diagnostic and prognostic very difficult. So for the time being, as neither is in any pain, we are doing daily physiotherapy sessions to see if the cats will improve, start weight bearing and regain the ability to move and control their hind legs. But it is not at all guaranteed that they will walk again.

Out on my scooter again to grab some groceries and dinner before dark. The sunsets here are just amazing. But half-way through my meal, as I sat facing an amazing beach and a ball of orange fire descending into the sea, my phone pinged. It was a message from one of the volunteers who had been contacted by another volunteer about a dog known to PACS who was lying in the road unable to move. A flurry of WhatsApp messages followed to try to find a vet who could come back to the clinic (even though officially there is no after-hours service) and someone who was willing to bring the dog to the clinic. I found one vet who was willing and able to return and we went to meet the two women who agreed to bring in the dog. The poor animal was unable to move but had reasonably reassuring vital signs. We put him on a drip and gave pain relief and then put him in a kennel. Without knowing the cause of his problem, this will be a game of wait and see.

I haven’t had time to take more pictures of the dogs, so I offer you a Thai sunset.

Photo credit : Koh Phangan, Hin Kong Beach sunset, photo by me