Coffee Update

It appears that I may have offended Coffee recently, when I published his incorrect weight.

From the picture, you can understand why the vet may have called the wrong weight. Its hardly a digital machine and when your legs are trembling with fear and you find it hard to compose yourself in the face of public scrutiny, the needle on the 'Kilo' probably indicates a range of about 2 kg's ( and some Coffee, eh eh !)

11 dogs

Started off with a trip to the small animal hospital in Chiang Mai to see the Orthopedic specialist with 3 dogs we have with bone problems.

Firstly there is Bill, the vet said the damage seen in the Xray was so old that surgery was out of the question and as the teeth were so strong, he would not recommend extraction either. Some student observers washed her mouth out for her and they asked a lot of questions about Cfd work.

Then there was Nong Dai, the puppy I picked up yesterday with what appeared to be paralysed back legs. The vet identified a damaged spine, vertebrae 8 & 9 were compressed together and there was a definite kink at that point. The vet suggested that to operate would not guarantee success and felt the chances of improvement were very low.

Finally there was Chrissy. A shy girl that is foster cared at Karin's home. It appears from Xray & the vets diagnosis, that she has a luxating patella which is why she occasionally limps. The vet said that to operate would most certainly cause more distress to the dog than to leave it alone and try to help the dog with anti-osteoarthritis medication instead.

Visited Hillside Condo 2 car park to see a dog that was reported to us recently as having an injured leg. Sure enough, his right front leg is lame and he doesn't use it. The security guard says that a motorbike hit him 2 years ago and the injury got wet and it didn't heal properly. (Well that's what he said!) So here is another case for next Thursday Orthopedic trip.

Next we visited a local vet, who was caring for a little terrier that had been beaten up by some other dogs & had some nasty bite wounds. We will take this little fella to the shelter next week and we are sure he will find a home very soon.

On route back to the shelter, we stopped at Mr Chan Pizza to check how the remaining 6 of the 9 pups were and to give them a spray for fleas & ticks. Amazing, someone had taken away another 5 and therefore only 1 remained. She looked so lonely. She will now join her 3 other brothers & sister back at Karin's home.

So, back to the shelter and drop off the 4 dogs on board. Then picking up Daeng & BuunKeow for their TvT injections, along with Mee from the village to have his ears looked at. Karin also took Coffee along and asked the vet about his ears.

Great news about Daeng, her tumour looks a little smaller already and certainly not bleeding like last week. Only 1 injection & that has had an effect.






BuunKeow's tumour is internal so far so not noticeably different but certainly no blood coming out of her vulva.

Mee's ears no longer had maggots in them, thanks to the efforts of the owner, applying medication every day but they were now still very dirty and needed to get a thorough clean daily too. At least the dog didn't scream this time every time the vet prodded his ears.

Coffee tipped the scales ( literally) at 36 kilos and it seems his ear canal is smaller on one side and therefore harder to clean inside. Karin said that when he was originally rescued from a temple, he had a wound from a severe bite on that ear, so this may be why he now has a reduced opening to that ear.

Ok, so that's the second trip over. Finally Karin & I went to the rear of Airport Plaza to meet up with a dog loving woman who told us about some of the dogs living around the car park there. We picked up 1 gentle girl we named Freeway ( after a sign on a truck near her) and we will get her sterilised next week.

2 trips today, 24 to the vet

First trip I took along a poodle ( village dog) called TukDik, Mimi, Nina, 2 cats for sterilsation.

I also took Maew, the village leaders cat who had not eaten for 2 days, and vomitted today. Transpired that Maew had a lead pellet in her body that had peirced her intestine 4 times. The vet said it was the first time he had ever done an operation like this, cutting out a section of the intestine & joining up the new ends.

Second trip, took along Coffee with a dew claw problem, Noi for hair loss ?? Mange? & Ya. The tumour is now showing outside of her vulva again. Vet said he would sterilise today and try to pull, what he termed was a prolapse, back in. Unfortunately after the operation, he said he was unsuccessful as her vulva muscles were so weak from the extensive TvT, that when ever he pulled it in, it just popped out again.

(About 4 weeks later, it fianlly went back in of its own accord!)

Also picked up Kaew and a bundle of 6 coughing & sneezing puppies. Turned out these had Distemper and after the diagnosis, I returned them to the village lady who found them and said that we could under no circumstances take them to the shelter for fear of the disease spreading.

Also on this trip I had Nugent & 7 babies who were all suffering with a rash and loss of hair. Turned out that all were suffering from Tick & Flea allergy.A good shower now & again along with some flea & tick treatment would improve their condition