Tree Of Life For Animals

One of our very first volunteers has written about her experience with us in August 2005 - the very beginning of our journey. It has just been published in the Veterinary Times magazine which is distributed to vets, nurses and veterinary surgeries throughout the UK.India’s Tree of Life for Animals—by Nadine Lock BVSc, Cert VAIn August 2005, the Indian charity Tree of Life for Animals embarked on its first major project and I was lucky enough to take part in it. Despite having an animal shelter that was only in the initial stage of being built, Rachel Wright, the founder of the charity had decided to take on a short-term relocation and Animal Birth Control program.For 6 days in early August the religious Urs festival takes place in the Rajasthani city of Ajmer. Pilgrims travel for weeks to reach the holy Dargah shrine, the surrounding area of which is home to scores of street dogs that live off scraps from the nearby restaurants. In previous years, the dogs have been rounded up in the preceding weeks and ‘disposed of’. Rachel, a British veterinary nurse passionate about animal welfare, was determined to offer a more humane solution and was thrilled to find support from the local municipal corporation.We were provided with a disused firestation to use as our base, and a team of willing students and cleaners to help us look after the dogs. The volunteer team consisted of 2 vets, an animal physiotherapist and a Battersea Dogs Home welfare officer from the UK along with 2 Indian vets, animal assistants (essentially veterinary nurses especially skilled at catching stray dogs) and drivers. For the first week, nights were spent catching the dogs and days were dedicated to making escape-proof shelters, assessing the new arrivals and providing treatment and basic care. The dog-catching was left to the experts and continued until all the dogs in the area had been found. Contrary to my expectations, the vast majority of the dogs were affectionate and gentle and those that had managed to escape from the confinement inside the firestation were waiting inside the gates each morning to welcome us with tails wagging.Lots of dogs were neutered and vaccinatedThe neutering program started once we had around 40 dogs in the compound. Each dog was given peri-operative IV fluids, antibiosis, meloxicam, ivermectin and the all-important rabies vaccine. Anaesthesia was TIVA using ketamine and diazepam or ketamine and xylazine after a xylazine or chlorpromazine premed. This combination worked extremely well and there were no anaesthetic-related deaths. Spays were performed via a right flank incision to reduce the incidence of post-operative infection. I learnt from the Indian vets we worked alongside that intradermal sutures have to create a perfect closure so as not to attract flies. This is more difficult than it sounds and probably added an extra 5-10 minutes of surgery time, but having seen the outcome of some spay wound infections, it was time well worth investing.During the 2 weeks, a total of 150 dogs were neutered, vaccinated, had any wounds or diseases treated and then were safely returned to the streets on which they had been found. 1 bitch was euthanased due to an extensive transmissible venereal tumour and another 2 dogs sadly developed signs of rabies so were also euthanased.Word travels fast in India and our presence became known within a very short time. In addition to working with the dogs we were also called upon to attend to numerous cases within the city, predominantly the victims of traffic accidents. Rachels brief visits into town to buy supplies often took up most of the day as she was presented by one sick animal after another. This could be anything from a puppy to a cow or even a camel. On one occasion I found myself travelling to meet her on the back of the local chai shop owners motorbike, with fluids and medication to treat a collapsed donkey - the first I had treated since qualifying all those years ago.Treating a sick donkey in the streetThe days were long, usually 16-18 hours of work, and often difficult and emotional but always rewarding. Our volunteer team all felt that the experience would stay with us forever. We were able to enjoy a beautiful country in the company of so many wonderful people whilst helping to give something back to the community and the animal population.The ongoing aims of the Tree of Life for Animals are to create a rabies-free environment; provide treatment and freedom from suffering for stray animals; educate villagers in basic veterinary care; provide a mobile veterinary unit in remote rural areas.If you would like to know more about the work of the TOLFA or are interested in volunteering or fundraising, please see our website www.tolfa.org.uk. The charity is currently in desperate need of funds so any help you can offer would be most welcome.Read Nadines original post about her volunteer experience with us.

Over the coming months Rachel will be writing articles and stories that will update us on the progress and the exciting projects that the charity is involved in and showing us what a difference is being made as she helps the animals of Rajasthan.

Here is the first article written by Rachel about setting up the Charity. It was published in the VN Times in Autumn 2005.

Starting With A Bang

If you had said to me this time last year that I would in a couple of weeks, be moving to India ready to start the project I had always dreamed of, I would have said that you were mad! But that is exactly what I am doing. After spending months meeting with Government officials, surveying lands, conversing with architects, accountants and lawyers, finding out statistics about rabies and existing veterinary care, writing proposals and meeting with potential sponsors, finally the dream of running my own veterinary charity is coming true, and I can’t wait!

The Idea

“Follow your heart and you will never go wrong”, a friend once told me. And that’s exactly what led me to a small part of central Rajasthan in India, where there are so many animals in need and very few resources to help them. But that is soon to change. The Tree of Life for Animals, as I have called my new organisation, is planning to start work on 4th October 2005, and begins with a city project aimed at tackling the ever present rabies problem, through a mass sterilisation and vaccination campaign. It will also help with the terrible suffering that can be seen on every street in India with the provision of a rescue vehicle and shelter for all the animals requiring medical or surgical attention.

The Future

In the future the trust, as it has been formed in India, will also look at the challenges faced by the people and livestock living in far out rural areas that have no access to any veterinary care at all. We hope to remedy this by organising training courses for community members, teaching basic veterinary care and good animal husbandry.
As a back up, we also hope to be able to provide a mobile veterinary clinic completely kitted out with all the necessary equipment, and a vet who can respond to calls from the community for more serious conditions. You might think “That’s a huge plan, how can it ever be achieved?” But the answer is that we can do anything if we really set our minds to it.

Communal Effort

Yes, maybe if I was doing this on my own, it would probably take a lifetime to achieve but, in reality, although it was my own vision in the first place, and me that set the wheels in motion, I have met and been supported by some amazing people, both in the UK and India. It no longer looks like a complete uphill struggle, but a completely achievable goal!

Starting Out

Although I was sure that we wouldn’t begin our work before October 2005, I was faced with a dilemma after speaking to an Indian lady about a festival that was held in Ajmer, one of the places we will be working in, every year. At the time of the Urs Festival, thousands of muslim pilgrims descend upon the city to worship at one of the most holy muslim shrines in the whole of India. Unfortunately the shrine is also home to around 400 street dogs. Unlike in the UK, there are millions of what are called ‘street’ or ‘community’ dogs. They are basically strays that feed off the rubbish on the streets and breed freely, and what the majority of people in the area call a pest. In the area that we are soon to be working in, there are between 12,000 and 15,000 dogs and we are aiming to reduce this by 70% over a three-year period.

Controlling Strays

But during the festival there is a huge pressure on the local council to just get rid of the dogs from the area and this is done through the most unimaginable means. Once I found this out, I couldn’t bear the thought that I would be there and know that this would be happening and not do anything about it. So we are “doing something about it”. We managed to get the Government to provide a suitable building and land where we can make pens that are completely dog proof. At first I thought that we would just catch all the dogs - not an easy task in itself as they all hang around in their territorial groups, and mixing the dogs up can result in terrible fighting - but then I thought, if we are going to hold them for 10 days we might as well neuter and rabies vaccinate them all at the same time.

Volunteers

That is what we would have been doing to them at a later date anyway. But how on earth do you neuter 400 dogs in just over a week? The answer is to try to convince five vets and eight nurses that they really want to spend their time neutering 10 or 12 dogs a day, in not exactly the most ideal conditions. We have volunteers from both the UK and India willing to donate their time and it will a real exchange of cultures and professional ideas. Far from the sterile operating theatres that we are used to in the UK, we will be operating in an as yet unused fire station, using kitchen tables, stools and operating lights temporarily donated by local people. It won’t be propofol, isoflurane and oxygen that we rely on to keep our patients asleep, but an IV injection of ketamine, xylazine and valium. It is not possible to sterilise 50 to 60 kits a day, so boiling and cold sterilising the instruments is the best that can be done.

Difficult Task

The weather will be hot and steamy as we catch the tail end of the monsoon, and working hours will be long as the operating time is just a small part of the work we have to do. Although we have 20 students studying English degrees at the local college who have offered to come and help clean out, prepare food and feed the dogs, there are also the follow up checks and any postoperative care to do as well. Thankfully, through true Indian hospitality there is also a team of willing ladies to provide constant chai and stuff us full of chapattis and dhal to keep the blood sugar up. The Indian media are also keen to come and record all the activities of this united effort in the name of animal welfare. |it is hoped that in 10 days we will save the lives of 400 dogs who would otherwise have suffered an uncertain fate.