Day 8 - TUC - Across the finish line

Which turned out to be the 2nd last dog!

Elated that our final day at TUC has come to an end. Finding the absolute limits of our endurance individually and working as an amazing streamlined team. Just a huge thank you to my team members for this trip: Leesa, Helen P, Helen B and Annaliese. We are a pretty awesome team!! Our final tally stands at 320 dogs, with another 57 surgeries completed today. So we averaged 40 surgeries per day across 3 vets over the 8 surgical days. We couldn’t keep going at this pace for much longer, 4 days was really all we could humanly manage! To put these numbers in perspective, over the previous 4 years we have desexed a total of 736 animals.

Uniforms a bit worse for
wear after a long day

The day was pretty much a blur of 2 truckloads of caged dogs, so many walk ins, dogs arriving in cars, one dog on a bicycle, a dog from the previous day revisiting with a happy owner, plenty of cats early in the day, owners dropping in to seek worming or flea medication, a pig owner getting a recheck on his piglet which had been attacked by a dog 2 days earlier, more masses of school children watching on in shifts, being surrounded by huge amounts of noise from surrounding children and machinery nearby, goodbyes with our council staff members and MELAD staff members, a very late afternoon tea/supper with the Australian High Commissioner and his wife, then our drive home to pack, clean, sort and store all our gear in preparation for next year.

My favourite dog for the day!

Cooling off

Our overall highlight for this trip has been the positive uptake for veterinary services by the local people. The demand has been high, and from questioning owners, it appears that radio advertising has been a big positive factor. And collaboration with the two councils and the Department of Agriculture equivalent (MELAD) was at its strongest ever. And owners appear to be understanding the need for population control for the dogs, and that desexing their dogs reduces roaming and improves the health of their pets. We hope they will learn more about the links between dogs and human health.

Supper at the high comm

So, we still aim to one day successfully obtain grant funding for this project, but there will be a need to link the dog programme to other human education and health objectives and outcomes. However, we are always very grateful for Dr Jude Mulholland for her vision, commitment to and support for the programme. We are already starting to plan for 2019, and hoping we have enough funding to do so, pending sufficient donations.

Last morning #1

Last morning #2

Exhaustion, elation, teamwork, good, hard work, beautiful place, complicated, lovely people, feeling real and alive, crowded, needed, common problems, stakeholder engagement and cooperation, privilege, multiple skills…just some of the words to describe our time this trip.

Day 7 - TUC - Politicians and more records

Sunset on our way home, bringing in the freshly caught bone-fish

Today started at 8am with a cage of dogs to greet us before we had even set up. We are actually very grateful to the council for the truck hire and assistance with supplying dogs which maximizes our possible use of time here….which turned into another nearly 10 hour very busy day! We reached a new record of 63 surgeries for the day, including several pregnant cats and other cat desexings. So needless to say we are tired but happy again! A box of hard to find Bulla icecreams was a bonus treat on our way home, with more fish and rice for dinner : )

The day was punctuated by visits from many cat owners, a visit from the South Tarawa member for Parliament, and over 100 school children at the end of their school day crowding around trying to watch. Noisy and inquisitive onlookers!

The MP for South Tarawa and his son and puppy and the team

Helen made sure that the MP heard some stats about parasite burdens in the dogs and implications for human health, and I added some thoughts on dog management legislation to give him something to think about. We'll see. Small steps each visit.

Can't capture a photo that grasps the 100 school kid
strong crowd, but these were some of the kids hanging around
having fun at the end of the day. Note the big kid in the
teal blue shirt at the back...

Final day tomorrow. Hoping our stamina will last the distance. Another very encouraging day. Beautiful sunset on the way home as we bought fresh bone fish (minutes off the boat) for dinner.

"Chocolate Leesa" as a small feisty pup
 in 2017

"Chocolate Leesa"in 2018 all grown up!

Sunset a few minutes after the first photo above

Day 6 - TUC and clocking the double century

Walking across the channel to North Tarawa at low tide

Traditional building construction

The "old ladies"having a  dip

Walking up to Broken Bridge

We had a really refreshing rest day yesterday walking up to “Broken Bridge” in North Tarawa for a swim. Warm, but relaxing and fun to see more traditional housing and more vegetation and a sparser population. Our final leg home to South Tarawa was by canoe at night with a beautiful night sky above us.

Lucky we were refreshed because going on Saturday’s tally and council support we were expecting a busy day. We started at surgery #142….and after a very long, hot, and sometimes relentless (but still satisfying) afternoon, we finished on surgery #200!! Three truckloads and heaps of walk ins. Another day that exceeded expectations, not only in our endurance!!

Entertainment for school kids!

Highlights were: watching the very real affinity a new council worker helping us had with the dogs; being recess, lunchtime and for some kids whole day entertainment – at one stage it seemed like there were more than 50 kids crowded around our “barricade” of tables watching the proceedings; people thanking us for our services; feeling like our veterinary services were in demand and that we could barely keep up (some people waited quite a long time!); continuing to see Rui the local paravet practice his surgery skills; seeing some great dogs during the day; and yes, that last dog and 5.30pm was a definite highlight!!

Dog number 200!!

We were also spoilt by an invitation to dinner at an Aussie guy’s house where we could learn more about life on Tarawa and share a really wonderful meal made by his partner.

We are running low on supplies and hoping we can make it through the last 2 days with enough of everything – always a tricky quantity surveying problem (particularly when one is limited by luggage allowance!).

Day 5 - Super Saturday at TUC

 

New location at the TUC garage

Dogs were collected on the back of a truck from villages
along South Tarawa

 

Another amazingly successful day – far beyond expectations, and particularly given it was a Saturday. Earlier in the week we had dropped in to see the clerk at our final council location, the TUC, to inquire if our suggested schedule was okay, and whether there would be a truck available. She assured us that a truck had been hired for all 4 days, even on the Saturday. We have worked here with staff for the previous 4 years, and there is now a good collaborative relationship present when we visit.

Surgery number 100!!

We were not disappointed – we arrived at about 8.20am, and a truck with over 10 dogs arrive at 8.30am while we were still setting up! The rest of the day was a blur of another 2 truckloads of dogs, and many walk ins, seeing us set a new record of 46 dogs and 10 cats in one day. Needless to say we were pretty tired by the end of the day. A good thing that tomorrow is a rest day.

Going home

Highlights for me were working again with our very helpful dog enforcement officer colleagues, in particular with our friend Bunaua. It is also a fun place with many children onlookers, helped by the parked truck where we were working.

Me with our old friend Bunaua and
kitten patients.

Leesa with her new young friend

Grateful for a successful day, with a really excellent and competent team, with a lot of interest from local people.

Day 4 - NEVER wish for a quiet day

The main islands of Kiribati. Tarawa is the 2 sides of
a triangle in the top left quadrant

I completely lost any credibility that I was hanging onto today. We started out pretty much on time with our shopping list of petrol, banana bread, superglue and a stop to visit the hospital pharmacy on the way. I said that we would drop into the hospital 8-8.30am to pick up our much needed disinfectant, then we would be on our way to Tanaea at the Agriculture division of MELAD (Ministry of Environment, Lands and Agriculture Division).

Buying bananas - they are wonderful!

In previous years Tanaea had been a long way from anywhere and no-one knew we were there, and we never managed to do much surgery there. So I was not keen we spent much time there but agreed we should try a day. So I wasn’t in a big hurry to get there at 8.30am as arranged. So when Helen suggested that we visit the hospital emergency department to ask what dog bite statistics they had, we thought it would be no problem to stop for a chat while we were in the hospital environs.

Waiting owners with their dog

Tanaea is on the edge of a channel running between
 the ocean and the lagoon

So the chat turned into a visit to the hospital statistician as we discussed the merits (and current limitations) of obtaining data on the number of cases presented for dog bites to the hospital or clinics. This turned into quite a long (and interesting) chat....

So around 10am we finally appeared at our clinic destination….to find 5 dogs waiting for our services and soon plenty more appeared. In recording the “clinic admissions” for the day I was delighted that most people had heard of our presence and services on the radio. They had mostly travelled in their own vehicles or with the help of friends. We even had 2 previously desexed dogs come to visit for ”medicine” (worming). Long story short we didn’t stop for lunch until 4pm, as more and more vehicles turned up with their animals!

Selfies - Paddling in the channel at the end of a busy day

Kids playing nearby

Needless to say we were pretty tired again but satisfied with a very encouraging day. Current tally stands at 80 dogs (52M, 28F), 5 cats (2M, 3F).

 

Annaliese took it out on a coconut

And won after some sweat!!

Day 3 - Goodbye Betio

Chilled kitten with Annaliese who
organised us so well today

Well today saw us finishing our visit to the port village of Betio, on the far western end of Tarawa. Highlights of the day include:

·      * Chilled and happy little black and white kitten which spent the day perusing the activities amidst all the dogs, after being desexed

Everyone got a hold

         

        * Recognizing a dog owner (who had brought in his 4 dogs to be desexed!!) who had had his dog desexed on our visit in 2015. I remember him because his previous dog which has since died, he explained was a very special dog. The dog had pulled his child out of the water in the port at Betio when she was small. She is now 11 years old. It was lovely to meet him again with his new dogs, and to remember his story which highlighted his connection with his dog.

My friend from 2015 with his four new dogs

Little kitten watching the sleeping dogs.

     * The council enforcement workers made 3 truck runs for us today and were recording owner names, we think for dog registration purposes. This is a great contribution from BTC, and great progress from previously less than optimal engagement with the council.

Owners shading their dogs for the ride home.

Leesa high fiving everyone, again!

Double whammy cat surgery

      * Double surgery with Allison desexing a female cat at the back end while Helen did a surgical repair for a (long since) previously ruptured eyeball at the front end.

The two Helens making good progress with the tally

Leesa's angels?

Translation: "Surgery for the animals"

The evenings are spent cleaning out our boxes ready for the next day, cooking dinner (sweet chilli tuna and rice and pumpkin tonight) and collapsing into bed ready for the next day!

Day 2 - Dib dib dib, dob dob dob, and Harry

Pedicures as requested! They do match our scrub tops nicely.

We had another very sweaty day in sunny, humid Betio. Some of us didn’t have a toilet stop until  after dinner!! Half way through the day we asked some of the dog owners if they might be able to find us some drinking coconuts and they obliged which was lovely.

Waiting, waiting....

Tally – another 16 dogs and 2 cats, total tally 40 dogs & cats. We had a few tricky ones today with a bitch “which had only given birth to puppies 1 month ago” turning out to be 4-5 weeks pregnant, and an apparently cryptorchid male dog nearly sending Annaliese crazy, with no retained testicle to be found…turned out that his weird/scarred scrotum was a result of local ways of trying to desex puppies (someties with disastrous results), so in actual fact he only had one testicle to remove! Hence Helen’s quote of the day “Dib dib dib, dob dob dob”, do your best!”

Council delivery - great progress  working with this  BTC

And in they came

My favourite picture - unloading

Goodbyes

Dried sandworms!

After we packed up we had a little drive around the war memorial, WWII war relics and shops and port area. Helen adventurously sampled dried sand worms, and Allison bought a 6kg tuna for dinner for $20 AUD!! Our tuna was christened Harry and shared the cosy long ride home on the back seat. Then it took Helen and Allison a fun 20 minutes trying to carve it up. And he was delicious!

Harry the 6kg tuna

Harry.

Contemplation

End of another day.