Animal Aid photos

Suraj and I. I love Suraj!

A tiny puppy with a leg wound. Every morning I'd take off her bandages, clean the wound, and then sit with her for an hour or so in the sun so it could air dry a bit. It was very swollen and a lot of fluid seeps out...better to be open to the air for at least an hour or so. The flies here are awful...so I have to sit with her to keep them off of the wound, too. Almost every day the doctors are treating dogs with maggot infested wounds.

Suraj and the new baby cow! Just 2 days old.

Animal Aid

The photos in the blog are NOT in order...a glitch with the laptop, the browser, all sorts of things. So...the point is I cannot rearrange photos to tell a logical story. So you get bits and pieces of out really big day at Animal Aid. Today we did a blood transfusion for a little puppy! We picked a resident dog to be the donor, rounded up all the supplies, and did the transfusion. The puppy had it's leg amputated yesterday, it was badly broken and starting to rot. But in the meantime, he was anemic and dehydrated. He seems to be doing very well, hopefully he will continue to do so. The photo above is Erika feeding papaya to the nurses that stayed in with the puppy to monitor the transfusion drip.
This is another puppy that had it's leg amputated today.
Sanjeev held a staff meeting today to talk about what the clinic staff envision for Animal Aid now and in the future.
Everyone around the surgery table during the transfusion.
The transfusion was given with a 22 gauge butterfly catheter. It seems to have gone well, but I need to do more research on what the minimum needle size is for transfusions...if it's too small then you can hurt the blood cells.
Suraj and Minnie.

Some of the staff with our donor dog, and her blood donation. (Peggy? Polly?)
Prepping the donor dog so that we can get to her jugular vein. She was really good about everything. I was surprised to realize that when they prep the animals for surgeries or things like this, they cut the fur away with scissors and then use a straight blade to get down to the skin. They had a pair of clippers but the clippers were from Canada and something went wrong with the electrical conversion to India's system, and they died. I want to buy them clippers. NOT that watching the straight blade process wasn't fascinating. It was. They are very good at it. But wow!!!
This is the puppies leg before amputation...the surgery for today. (The puppy that got the blood donation was yesterdays surgery.)

Animal Aid

A herd of goats passing thru the Animal Aid area.
One of the roadside places that we eat lunch every day. usually spicy cooked vegetables and chapatis. By the time we are done my eyes are watering and my nose running. VERY spicy food. When I get home I am eating pizza for a week.
Pearly and Sanjeev...volunteers. They are also from Boston!
The store where we get cold drinks. Then we walk to the place that makes lunch. Samosa's are across the street. A separate place for everything.

Surej, perched on top of the water spigot.
The only cat at the clinic right now.
Administering fluids via butterfly catheter. They don't use permanent catheters here.
Some of the cows that live at the clinic.
This mama pig was hit by a car and has a broken hind leg. A few days after she came to Animal Aid she gave birth...
They have several resident Donkeys. They all have name tags hanging from their necks.
This poor cow is really sick. They are not allowed to euthanize cows in India. So, even if one is suffering miserably and nothing can be done for them, you cannot put them down.
Suraj and I. He flirts with me.
A field on the property. They grow this for the cows to eat. Once a week they flood the field and that's why it grows so nicely. Rajasthan is a desert state...everything is very hot and dry. Nothing grows on it's own.
Fergus. He is missing his nose and they are working on figuring out what's going on. He is not responding to treatment.
In Puppytown.
The mange kennel area. It can hold 20 dogs.
Puppytown. For paralyzed puppies that live as residents.
Looking at Mangetown from the main kennel area.
Treatment in "A" Kennel.
The dogs are allowed to roam around "A" Kennel if they are well behaved and get along. Most continue to hang out in their kennel even if the door is open. The concrete floor is cool, and the kennel is shady.

"A" Kennel. It can hold 40 dogs.
"A" Kennel. That huge pot is what the dogs meals gets made in twice a day. Lentils, milk, rice, and chapatis. More like soup.
Part of the main building area. Tarps are hung for shade.
Surgery room.

Animal Aid

These are the ticks from one half of one dog. I couldn't turn him over to get the other half because he was in such pain. But as he lay there, I took some time to clean him up. he had too many little friends.
This is one of the dogs that lives at the clinic. In all, about 50 dogs live there. They have injuries to such an extent that they are not releasable. This is one...but I can't remember her name. Her upper and lower jaws are markedly off. I believe this is a genetic issue...that the genes for upper and lower jaws are in totally separate places.

Yes, this is a bone showing thru a wound in a dogs leg. What strikes me the most about these dogs is how little muscle they have on their bodies. They are literally skin and bones.

I had no idea that dogs could contract venereal diseases. Once I was aware of it, I started looking around. Almost all of the female dogs have the disease, and it essentially makes their whole vulva a tumor. They treat it with Vincristine. Sorry if I am grossing anyone out. This is what I see here every day.

This is how morning treatments are done...on the ground, with a tray of antiseptic, injectables, bandaging. The man on the right is one of the veterinarians.

And this is Minnie. She has no back legs, and is outfitted with an e-collar for her rear. If she didn't have this, she'd drag her hind end in such a way that she'd have constant open sores. This way the e-collar takes all the abuse.

India March 4th

I finally made it to Udaipur (5 days of motion...) and this is one of the views from the place I am staying. Usually this bridge is over, well, water. They have had very bad rains the lats few monsoon seasons, and the lake is disappearing. I was going to upload a video of the room I found onto YouTube but didn't count on India's internet being...so...slooooow. It was hard enough to upload these 3 small photos. Hmmmm. Need to reconsider. Maybe everyone will just have to wait until I get home to see most things. Can't do much about the technology infrastructure I guess. Along the same lines, I went to plug my laptop in today (in my room) and I think I blew the outlet. It made an awful noise and died. My laptop is ok. But I can't edit without power...it will die pretty fast. Damage control, damage control. Always doing damage control. My dad might say "operator problems" but not this time. :)
The pre paytaxi stand at The international airport. These men are taxi drivers. They wouldn't let me to the window, I had to stand there for 10 minutes and wait.
And this is very exciting! THIS is the infamous lost luggage room at the airport in Delhi! The one I always joke is set up like a Home Depot...except for lost luggage. Row after row of these floor to ceiling storage racks, that stretch way back. They lost my luggage (of course) and I had to jump thru 6 hoops to get it back, I got to sneak a shot of the room. This is just a small part of it, I was shooting from the hip, hoping that no one noticed. I have to say, I was terribly disappointed that they replaced the eerie lights on a single long cord, suspended right over the desk, with overhead fluorescents. It take so much of the mood away! In the end, it took 2 days to get my lost bag, and it was a lesson in handling stress. Once I got out of Delhi and on the way to Udaipur, I felt much better. Last night was spent on that train, it was a 14 hour trip. Today was spent being lazy and cleaning up, tomorrow I will go to work.