Spay Our Way Through San Andres: Surgeries

Thanks, as usual, to the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for helping fund our clinic! Our leader Suzanne and local volunteer Isadora stood in front of the sign for a thank you plug photo:

Welcome to our clinic "lobby". For this trip, several organizations, including the local Health Department helped set things up for us. I don't know who donated the use of the canopies, but our outdoor lobby kept pets and owners in the shade while they waited, which was really nice!

Most dogs came in on leashes, except for the street dogs that were brought in by volunteers. Those came in crates, and some of them really did not like being confined. Most of the cats came in cardboard boxes, except for a pair that were brought in a grocery bag.

Each owner brought their pet(s) to a check-in desk:

Where local volunteers helped fill out paperwork:

And gave each dog a collar with the dog's name. After "Street Dog #3, volunteers started naming the street dogs too, so they wouldn't be left out without a name.

After everyone was labeled, the dogs were given "pre-med" - a sedative before trying to make them hold still for IV catheter placement. We had "cheat sheets" to help us calculate medication doses according to the animals' weights. We had to guess the weights, because there were no scales at the clinic, but we got pretty close. With that in mind, we had to pay very close attention to the critters under anesthesia, since we might have to give them more medication if they started to twitch. Dee got pretty good at drawing up medications, besides making sure all our instruments were clean and sanitized, and playing gopher for all the vets!

After pre-med, and waiting about ten minutes for the medicine to kick in, each dog was brought into the induction area for surgery prep. Everyone got to wear a muzzle, or "party hat", to make sure we were all safe. A good thing too, because one of the dogs kept trying to jump at people to bite them. Thank goodness we had a catch pole available too! During surgery prep, each dog got an IV catheter for giving anesthetic. Noel, a local volunteer, has helped at World Vets clinics before, and already knew how to place an IV catheter. He put in the very first one, and surgeries were ready to start!

IV catheters are hard to place! At least one person has to hold the dog still (more if the dog is wiggly). Someone else has to shave the dog's leg, scrub it, clean with alcohol, and get the catheter and several pieces of tape ready. The catheter is a really thin flexible sheath, that comes with a needle inside it. We have to get the whole thing placed right into the dog's vein, then pull out the needle, without pulling out the catheter itself. Once the needle is out, we can tell the catheter is in the right place because a drop of blood comes rushing towards us. Then it's a race to get the catheter capped off before any blood spills out (even if it did, it would just be a drop or two - nothing to worry about, but it's a fun challenge!). Then the catheter is taped carefully into place, and voila - ready for anesthetic!

Once the dog has anesthesia medication, they fall asleep in less than a minute. That's when we shave and clean the surgery area. On this trip, we didn't have very many support staff, so the surgeons had to do some of their own prep work. They were sure good sports about it! Sometimes, especially if a dog was extra grumpy, we kiss their little noses once their asleep (at least Nicole does. I'm more likely to rub my face in their tummy).

Finally, the dogs are taken to surgery land, and the surgeons get to take a turn. They wear headlamps to make sure they can see exactly what they're doing. Since the surgeons are "gloved up", they can't touch anything that isn't sterile, so there were several of us, including local volunteers, on hand to get more medications, open packages of suture, and monitor vitals during surgery.

After surgery, everyone went to a recovery room, where they got antibiotics, pain medication, and a Rabies vaccine. A local vet named Josefina helped run our dog recovery room, and made sure everyone woke up safely. The recovery room got very hot and stuffy, but that was a good thing. Anesthesia lowers a dog's body temperature, and since we didn't have any towels or blankets to cover the patients while they were waking up, the heat helped them to stay stable and safe.

Some of the dogs woke up more quickly than others, and we had to give them their medications on surgery tables. One of our last patients of the day woke up very fast, and we had to muzzle her and hold her very carefully so that she could get all the medicine she needed before going home. Anesthesia can be very scary for animals, and sometimes they try to bite just because they're scared. Muzzles protect everyone, and give the dogs something else to think about besides just being scared ("hey, why is there something on my face?"). This dog, Estrella (which means Star) I think is a very nice dog, but even she snapped at us at the start. A few days from now, she'll feel much better about the whole thing, and I promised her she would never have to have puppies again. Her owner says she's been a very good mama, but she deserves to retire!

About halfway through the day, a nice couple brought us all lunch - a variety of meats and vegetable dishes. Our friend Hurricane sat with us and asked very politely for some of our lunch. I offered to let him lick my plate, but he smelled the vegetables without meat and didn't want any. I guess he gets enough to eat! Collette shared a little bit of her meat with him, and he sure liked that!

Hurricane wasn't the only one Collette shared snacks with - she also brought suckers for the local kids! Dee brought stickers and small toys to share too. Some of the kids even got to watch part of the surgeries (through a window).