Kinship Circle IC Cheri Deatsch, vet Corinna Chia and Lisa (both with Save Elephant Foundation) wash mounds of food bowls accumulated each day at the emergency flood shelter in Bangkok.
Photo: (c) Kinship Circle, Thailand 2011
Kinship Circle’s Sister Michael Marie, a vet tech, monitors anesthesia as British veterinarian Emma Sant Cassia spays a dog in the "surgical suite" at the flood shelter. Photo: (c) Kinship Circle, Thailand 2011 / Sister Michael Marie
Kinship Circle loves U.K. vet Emma Sant Cassia, at the flood shelter via Worldwide Veterinary Service. Emma has since registered in Kinship Circle’s disaster response network. We hope to enlist her stamina, humor and huge heart in the future! Photo: (c) Kinship Circle, Thailand 2011 / Sister Michael Marie
Vet aide Pong (SCAD) and veterinarian Corinna (SEF) start an IV to hydrate a newly diagnosed Parvo pup. (c) Kinship Circle, Thailand 2011 / Sister Michael
Kinship Circle volunteer Trisha Fravel and Grizz have bonded. Photo: (c) Kinship Circle, Thailand Flood 2011 / Sister Michael Marie
A Parvo pup on fluids via IV catheter awaits transport to a veterinary hospital. Photo: (c) Kinship Circle, Thailand Flood 2011 / Sister Michael Marie
Volunteer vet Emma Sant Cassia performs spay surgery. Photo: (c) Kinship Circle, Thailand Flood 2011 / Sister Michael Marie
Jenny, the shelter "greeter," leaves for her new adoptive home. Photo: (c) Kinship Circle, Thailand Flood 2011 / Sister Michael Marie
From left: Cheri Deatsch, Sister Michael Marie, Emma Sant Cassia, Trisha Fravel. Photo: (c) Kinship Circle, Thailand Flood 2011 / Sister Michael Marie
Sister Michael and Toni prep Mabel for spay surgery. Photo: (c) Kinship Circle, Thailand Flood 2011 / Sister Michael Marie
Zombie, a Red Husky with bad skin, falls asleep in a laundry basket on left. On right, the "King of the Shelter" poses. Photo: (c) Kinship Circle, Thailand 2011
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Sections In This Flood Report
ARTISTIC FLOOD FACES
Images Of Animals In Field, Shelter
- DATE:
December, 2011
- LOCATION: Emergency Flood Shelter:
Thai Watana Panich Press, 919 Bang Pu Industrial Estate Soi 11B, Praek-sa Rd, Muang District, Samut Prakan. Bangkok
- SUBMITTED BY: Sister Michael Marie, Kinship Circle PIO
- TEAM ON GROUND: Cheri Deatsch, Sister Michael Marie, Stephanie Naftal, Trisha Fravel
Nameless Animals Gain Hope (And Identity) At Flood Shelter
By early a.m. a Kinship Circle team is at the emergency flood shelter to clean cages, walk dogs and update animal care records. Sunlight shafts cut through canopy tents, casting green shadows on animals and people. Dogs line a narrow corridor that connects to a main area for the sick and injured. Further down, linear runs house bigger animals. A few belong to flood evacuees. Most are nameless, pulled from flood zones.
Six canopy tents with mesh dividers are bound with bamboo poles. Each day, volunteers re-line filthy cages with fresh newspaper. Enclosures are disinfected and hosed down. A mountain of rainbow-colored food and water bowls are sterilized. Cages and bowls air dry on a grassy patch just beyond tents. Wet and dry food are mixed in mass bowls, with assorted concoctions for babies, adults, and special-need animals.
Volunteer veterinarians and techs divvy out meds for the mixed-bag ailments that spread in disaster shelters. Dr. Emma Sant Cassia, a British vet, created ID charts affixed to every cage. For example, animal #C007 —
▪ Morning (A.M.) Walk: ✔
▪ A.M. Pee: ✔
▪ A.M. Poop: no
▪ A.M. Food & Water: ✔
▪ A.M. Meds Given: ✔
▪ Comments, Observations About This Animal:
Etc… The cycle repeats itself early evening. Pre-surgery or ill animals withheld from food, water and ⁄ or exercise are noted.
During the afternoon, animals undergo anesthesia, spay-neuter and other procedures in a clear space designated the "surgical suite."
By lunch time, blistering heat envelops these warehouse grounds — kindly donated for use as a temporary shelter. Though fans cool animals, sweaty volunteers trudge through endless tasks…and welcome the cool-down that arrives around 4:00 p.m.
One treat: Save Elephant Foundation, the Thai NGO that secured this shelter and staffs it with SCAD Foundation as on-site management, stocks a cooler with drinks and brings in boxed Thai lunches (vegetarian and vegan!)
Brief Fugitive: Harry The Hairless Breaks Out Of Shelter
We show up early as usual…but clearly someone is missing. It’s Harry, on the lamb with an empty cage to confirm his bust-out. The scabies dog, who chomped down on Cheri in a complex net capture and is now under treatment, has disappeared.
SCAD Operations Director Matt Backhouse canvasses the neighborhood for Harry. He’s hard to miss: Muscular, black, and utterly fur-less due to advanced mange. But Harry is a no-show…
By the next day, guess who is waiting for breakfast when we pull into the shelter? It’s Harry, self-caged and looking vaguely guilty. Will his shenanigan cost him his grub? Naw. Harry is served up with the others and has not since liberated himself. We presume Harry figured out he has a good thing going: Regular meals, fresh water, a dry bed and lots of attention!
Parvovirus Precautions Lessen Risk For Other Animals At Shelter
Kinship’s Trisha Fravel commandeers a section of today’s under-staffed shelter, focusing on ill animals. Cheri Deatsch, team IC, casts a watchful eye on Harry — the hairless mange dog who bit her when retrieved from a flooded temple — and two pups with their mother, whom Cheri also rescued. The babies are pre-weaned so mom can get chemotherapy for venerial tumors.
Sister Michael Marie, a vet tech and long-time Kinship Circle disaster responder, is anesthesiologist and aide to veterinarian Emma Sant Cassia. One spay surgery is plagued with unforeseen complications, but the dog pulls through and is in recovery.
Three pups test positive for deadly Parvovirus, placing dozens of unvaccinated puppies at risk. So we send sick pups to vet clinics (that work with SCAD Bangkok) for isolated treatment. A pup with non-fatal Coronavirus (in green cage, photo above) moves to a clinic as well. We’re nearly out of Parvo kits, but manage to screen about 15 more when Wendy Edney, SCAD Chief Shelter Operations, secures additional kits.
Spay-Neuter For Flood Refugees
Today, about 20 more volunteers from SCAD and SEF thankfully boost shelter staff to numbers necessary for mass animal care. A pre ⁄ post op area is set-up for lead vet Emma, plus a Worldwide Veterinary Service doctor from North Carolina, Don Hanna, to perform multiple spays and neuters. Flood refugees also undergo nonsurgical protocols such as the Distemper combo vaccine, de-worming, etc.
One patient has a marble-size tumor by his right eye. After removal, the dog quietly gazes at frolicking puppies from his formerly obstructed eye. Then, in a sort of canine thumbs-up, the dog wags his tail. It has been so long since he could see from this eye!
Another dog receives supportive care for blood parasites, a common infection in Thailand. The poor little girl easily hemorrhages, with intermittment nose bleeds. On antibiotics, she calmly lets us clean residue from blood bubbles that emerge with each breath.
A woman with over 30 street dogs departs. Her home flooded, the evacuee and her canine entourage inhabited shelter grounds more than a month ago. Water has now receded enough for her to return home. Roughly 50 animals have left with guardians so far.
One Back From The Brink…As Another Leaves For New Home
Kinship Circle is the main shelter crew today. U.K. vet Emma and Stephanie Naftal attend to a wiggly pup who wants to undo her IV fluid line (left photo) while Trisha Fravel tends to maternity and hospital "wards" with 6 moms and unweaned tots, plus 3 pups isolated for parvo tests.
Kinship Circle’s Sister Michael Marie and Toni (SCAD) assist vet Don Hanna and his wife Lisa with numerous spays and neuters. Post-surgery animals are ear tattooed, but one already-spayed mutt makes it back to the surgery table without a tatoo.
Under anesthesia, she goes into cardiac and respiratory arrest. Dr. Hanna performs CPR until her heart restarts. When the dog fails to breathe, Sister Michael sustains manual life support — literally breathing for her as Dr. Hanna completes surgery. The dog awakens from anesthesia hours later. Despite risk of pulmonary blood clots, she seems fully recovered.
Jenny is among animals who leave today. The golden retriever, adopted by a former volunteer, acts as shelter mascot and greeter. Though we’re sad to see her go, Jenny is all goofy grins as she drives off perched out the window of a pink Volkswagon Beetle.
Monkey Business, Amid Healing And Occassional Death
Save Elephant Foundation rescued MuMu, a "pet" monkey who bit a household member and suffered from abuse after that. Now a year and a half old, MuMu gets to be the creature nature intended at SEF’s sanctuary in Chiang Mai. Paisaran "Patty" Pholsomsuk, SEF Assistant Shelter Manager, introduces us to MuMu during a stop at the flood shelter In Bangkok.
Among today’s sterilized is lovely Mabel, a beagle mutt Kinship Circle executive director Brenda Shoss hopes to adopt and further treat for a dislocated pelvis. An elderly Lab mix returns from a vet clinic afrer amputation of a leg mangled by a boat propeller in flood waters.
Vet assistant and SCAD volunteer Pong helps assess a young underweight dog, faring well until today. Vets Emma Sant Cassia and Corinna Chia (SEF) administer supportive care, but by 5:00 p.m. she lays dying. Sister Michael wraps the dog in gentle words and touch as she slips away. A necropsy reveals heartworm.
SUPPORT ANIMAL FLOOD RELIEF
Our Animal Disaster Fund is critically low after aid in Japan quake-tsunami and Thailand flood.
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