A couple of days after arriving in Yangon I met up with Terryl Just - an American woman who founded the Yangon Animal Shelter in 2012
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| One way the government justify the poisoning of dogs is no create a fear of rabies in the human population - in reality rabies is relatively rare in Myanmar |
Terryl along with her team face a very difficult job in Myanmar Like a lot of Asian countries there is no conventional pet owning culture. Street dogs are the order of the day - however conventional TNR (trap neuter release) can't be practised here due to government policy of poisoning dogs - there would be little point in neutering and releasing them to be killed. So how does a Buddhist government (no harm to animals being one of the tenants of Buddhism) justify this - they rationalise it by saying that they just poison the meat - it's the dogs choice to eat the meat! Unbelievable!!
However there is a rumour going round that poisoning may be stopping - but people are skeptical - things happen slowly here!
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| Terryl with Moose - the loveable rogue of the shelter! |
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| Cage area for recovering animals |
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| Philip our driver with some (!!) of the dogs! |
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| This dog was so sweet - what an earnest little face! |
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| Bigger swimming pool urgently needed! |
Terryl told me about the work the team does and I arranged to spend a week helping out at the end of my Myanmar trip.
The shelter has 500 dogs - no that's not a typo!! The inability to release and low adoption rates have lead to the build up of this number. Fortunately Terryl has been loaned a big property to house the shelter - the area is walled and the dogs free roam within the compound which gives them a decent quality of life
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| Lots of mothers feeding puppies get brought in... |
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| Boiling up the rice - one of the staples for the shelter dogs |
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| The feed bill is large!! |
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| Longstanding fractured canine |
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| The extracted root |
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| Transmissible Venereal Tumour - very sensitive to vincristine |
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| Casting a pups broken leg |
The work involved mainly neutering but there were a few interesting things to keep me busy including an amputation, dentistry and some chemotherapy!
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| Jamaya and her diseased paw - as well as the wound the paw was deformed and she didn't use the leg |
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| Immediately post surgery - the blue pad protects the stump |
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| Next day - a happy dog! |
Mornings were characterised by a stop for a lunch sandwich and then a stop at one of the medical markets or pharmacies to pick up any meds that might be needed - there is very little pharmaceutical control here so I was able to buy all sorts of meds that would be prescription only on the UK over the counter no questions asked!
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| At the pharmacy - vincristine and meloxicam OTC!! |
Thanks to the team at the shelter we soon got into a good routine - wrapping up the instruments and boiling them over a wood fire - sedating the dogs with xylazine and then popping in a catheter and topping up with a ketamine-valium mix to produce anaesthesia
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| My stuff! |
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| Boiling the instruments over wood fire |
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| Sterilised pack |
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| No nurses - so prepping my own spays! |
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| 2 bricks and a towel wrapped up in a plastic bag made a great cradle! |
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| Spaying a bitch |
Once the op was done the dog was whisked away to a recovery cage and the whole process started again I usually got 3 or 4 spays done plus the other bits and bobs that presented during the day
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| My great team of helpers |
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| Phillip Terryl and myself - Thanks to Terryl and all the team for a great week - hopefully I will make it back one day! |
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