Saturday, November 10th 2007

This Diwali is a weird one. As far as I can tell, its Christmas and Bonfire night rolled into one so the town is quiet this evening as it's a holiday. Funnily enough, despite the noise, I had the first uninterrupted nights sleep last night since getting here. I usually wake up about 2pm for some reason and again at 5am when the drums and chanting go off at the Old Rangji Temple over the road but I drift off again till about 6.15. Today I slept right through till gone 6am and didn't have any problem sleeping with the noise of fireworks in the night. It was unbelievably noisy and a little like a holiday on the Gaza Strip at one point but fortunately the ceiling fan in my room is quite loud and dulls the noise from outside. Its whirring noise is actually very soothing and it's still a bit too warm to sleep at night with it switched off anyway.

We woke this morning to find bizarre heaps outside the houses had appeared overnight. Everyone had a cowpat with some flowers, coloured flour, a Diwali candle and some sugar cane stuck in it. Don’t ask me what that's about but it's interesting! (apparently it’s supposed to be a little man…but why???)

One thing that is important to explain about India is that it has its own timescale. Nothing goes at your pace if you try to make it and you soon learn to go with the flow, in common with most hot countries and believe me, at the moment it is HOT. Breakfast takes as long as it takes and whatever time you get up, it will still appear at 7.45 so you may as well get used to it. I enjoy the wait though as the little stripy fellows (small, chipmunk-like things called Palm Squirrels) run up and down the roof top walls and the Langur monkeys chase each other over the rooftops and leapfrog from one house to another making one heck of an unholy racket as the roof is made of corrugated iron.

Palm Squirrel at breakfast

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Langur Monkey’s hanging-out on the roof!

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Most mornings, there is a singing, chanting procession to the Ghats (sort of jetty's down at the holy lake) where people go for morning prayers and they are usually processing back again when we are about to drive off in the taxi, slowing things down even more. However, Sam’s driving makes up for any time lost as he dodges around scooty's (mopeds) and between cows and herds of goats with millimetres to spare. The others probably find it quite alarming but I have come to the conclusion that as he's had the car a year and there isn't a scratch on it an he's also still alive, he probably knows what he's doing so I tend to laugh as the odd near miss or when he has to brake rather sharply on a corner because there are 20 goats and a camel train up ahead. What else can you do???!!! I guess it's all part of the adventure.

On a more serious note, there is a really sweet little dog with two different colour eyes who is a cream caramel colour and looks like a little version of the Egyptian God, Anubis. She is absolutely adorable. I picked her up for a cuddle at teatime and she was her usual self. 30 minutes later she was frothing from the mouth and her eyes were starting to get a staring look. She came in with an infected bite wound and is also the susceptible age so there is a good chance that she is developing Rabies. We have had about 3 dogs put to sleep pretty soon after being admitted as they were developing it and although we really hope that she isn't, it is a real possibility so tomorrow will be crunch time.

Possible Rabies case

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Distemper is another possibility and we have several cases here. There are about 10 dogs who live here permanently because they were either born here and couldn't be released as they aren't street savvy and have no territory to go back to, are too badly injured e.g. have leg amputations and don't live in a neighbourhood where the local people will feed them. The other reason would be if they have had Distemper. You can spot a Distemper dog a mile off as they have involuntary muscle spasms (St.Vitus Dance) and so we call them Dancing Dogs. Initially they are pretty moribund and very ill, usually needing aggressive drug therapy but the vast majority of them recover and eventually the twitching reduces to a sort of bobbing up and down motion. Boris, a black and white dog who will be a permanent resident was there when we arrived last week and he appeared to be at deaths door, lying in full sun, twitching all the time but if you moved him to shade he got up with a really disgusted look on his face and put himself right back where he started and when the food comes out, especially the hard boiled eggs that all the "special feeding" dogs get, there's no holding him back. The improvement in a week is amazing and he is walking about as often as he was lying down. Obviously, this is a debilitating disease and I wouldn't want to give the impression for one minute that vaccinating your dog isn't necessary as dogs do die from it but it is good to know that in a country where that isn't an option for the majority, with careful nursing, they can recover.

Boris sunbathing

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Sadly, I came in to work this morning to find that the donkey that was hit by a truck, died in the night. Knowing how tough donkeys are and how stalwart they can be in the fact of incredible adversity, it was obvious that the brain damage he suffered was very profound and although I hope that the essential oil work I was able to do with him easied his situation a little at the time, a combination of shock, trauma and dehydration reduced his chances of survival considerably.
Finally, a little brindle bitch puppy of about 12 weeks who came in yesterday with her two brothers and had a mangled hind leg has had antibiotics to control the infection and the lower leg was amputated this afternoon. She was still a little shaky and disorientated from the anaesthetic but has come round well and is now back in the kennel with her brothers as she will be much happier there than in the puppy pen as she had to share it with a complete hooligan who is a bit of a precocious child! As long as all goes well with her recovery, she should adapt to being on 3 legs very well and I will post a photo of her in a week or so when the dressing is off.

Puppy with partial leg amputation on arrival

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Sunday 11^th November

 The cream coloured bitch with suspected Rabies was confirmed and was put to sleep this afternoon. I was there and it was a very peaceful end. It was very sad, especially as she was otherwise healthy and only had a small wound that was healing pretty well. Ironically it was probably this that was responsible for her becoming infected as a result of being bitten by an infected dog. Knowing now how the disease progresses, I do feel that she is one of the lucky ones as she was at TOLFA and not dying on a rubbish heap somewhere. That sounds a hard thing to say but we have seen some sights and believe me, any dog that comes into the shelter, whatever the eventual outcome, is fortunate  compared to some.