Clinic work - Days 3, 4, 5

Work at the clinics - two separate veterinarian offices in Trujillo - is (obviously) a very different experience than the shelter work. While the shelter working is physically taxing, the clinic work is emotionally taxing. Courtney and Matt set this part of the project up so that we had two US vets (Lisa and Stephanie) at one clinic working with two Peruvian vets (Fernando and Jack) and at the other clinic we had a US vet (Brenda) and a US vet technician (Natalie) working with one Peruvian vet (Ingrid). Each day at the clinic, there were also Perros Project volunteers assisting the vets in many ways and this is what I did for the majority of days 3-5. Courtney and Matt worked diligently with the vets and other locals who work with the municipalities of Trujillo and Huanchaco to advertise that we would be there offering folks free spays and neuters June 21 - 26, so people brought in their dogs and some cats in to the clinics on all of those days. No appointments, so yes, it was chaotic at times.

The first day of clinic work for me was at the San Theresa clinic workinng with Brenda and Natalie. I found that they were doing more spays than neuters because in the Peruvian culture (and still the US culture for some) people are hesitant to take away the "masculinity" of their dogs. Much of the outreach work and education we did focused on explaining the health benefits (less incidence of cancer) of neutering the males and how it also helps their temperment. San Theresa was fairly clean, but small - approximately half the size of the waiting room alone of the vet that I go to here in the states. Because neuter and spay is not prevalent in Trujillo, there is really not a good "recovery area" for the animals post-surgery. We had to make do with laying them on the floor on cardboard and newspaper in a small back room and helpd some of the animals who were cold post-surgery until they woke up. At this clinic I assisted in taking notes of the vitals - gender, species, weight, history if any was known and then notes about the pre and post medications we gave them. Every dog and cat we treated while we were there received post-op antibiotics and pain medications and flea treatment - this is not par for the course for regular spays and neuters is my understanding. Spays and neuters and all of these medications are extremely expensive in Peru - a spay costs about $100 or nearly 300 soles in Peru and that does not include post-op medications. The motivation to spend so much money on what is deemed an unnecessary surgery is just nonexistant. One Day three at San Theresa, we had an influx of cats, so we ended up fixing four dogs and 6 cats that day. Brenda is a very experienced vet who has done similar veterinary volunteer work in other countries including Bolivia and countries in Africa.

Shelter work - Days 1 and 2

As you can see, I am not updating this blog daily, so I'll try to label the posts to give you an idea of what I am doing each of the days I are here. The shelter work consists of building fencing in order to separate more aggressive dogs from more subdued dogs as well as to make an area at the entrance for people who come to the shelter to adopt a dog. Adoption is actually a rarity, but our local friend, Ericka, works very hard with the shelter and the veterinary clinics to get dogs adopted out by posting dogs pictures to a website. We hope the fencing will then aid her in getting people to the shelter to meet the dogs. There are about 40-50 dogs at the shelter currently, so it is important that people can get to know and see one dog without all of the others around. The dogs are not vicious by any means - they are just very excitable and, lively we'll say. :) They jump and bark a LOT.
We are also laying brick and adding roofing to an area where eventually another local, Jesus, will stay at the shelter overnight in order to protect it. There are thieves who will come into the shelter and take whatever materials they can. We had to get the ends of our fence posts frayed by a welder before placing them in concrete (the shelter owner demanded this and we agreed because thieves would go to the extreme of pulling the metal posts out of the concrete she said)

Digging into the earth at the shelter is no easy task. We use a "spud bar" which is a heavy metal long stake with a relatively sharp edge at the bottom to break ground and then another person digs the earth and rocks out with their hands. This was truly the best and most efficient method - naturally we Americans tried a shovel and a fence post hole digger, but that did not work. The first day we worked from about 9am to about 6:30pm. After flying overnight, then working at the shelter and taking a couple of windy dusty rides to town to get supplies in the back of the truck, I came back to Huankarute to take what was likely the most deserving shower of my life.

The shelter

The Shelter

After a bit of coffee and bread and jam on Tuesday, June 22, our day of arrival, we changed clothes and headed straight to the shelter. Seven of us went to the shelter (riding in the back of a pickup truck) while about seven others went to the veterinary clinics for the spay/neuter clinic part of The Perros Project (two main projects going on here in Huanchaco and Trujillo - construction of the animal shelter and spaying and neutering of dogs). Let me just say, this dog shelter redefines anything I ever thought of as an animal "shelter" before. There are about 40 dogs there, all in one main area except for those who are a little vicious - they are in the "pens" - there is no roof and no floor and brick walls that are only about 6 feet high. I'll let the pictures speak more for me at this point and I'll write more about our work there in the next post.

The trip

I'll make this short as no one really wants to hear much about a person's travel trials and tribulations. :) We left Portland, Oregon at about noon on Monday, June 21st, flew through Dallas, Texas, through Miami, Florida, and then on to Lima, Peru, which was the overnight flight from approximately 11pm to 4:30am. We (myself, my friend Stephanie, and her mother, Virginia) all managed to sleep for a few hours. We had some trouble in Lima as they told us that they had overbooked the flight to Trujillo and one of the three of us was going to have to wait until the next flight at 3:30pm. This was not working for us at 5:30am when we needed to be on a 6:20 flight to get to Trujillo to get to Huanchaco (pronounced "Juan chako") to work!! In short, we ran with a female employee of the airport to the gate, bypassing lines and hopping security lines with a mere flash of our passports in order to get to the gate to be the first on the standby list. Note, had we done this in the US, we would have been detained by security immediately and would NOT have gotten on any flight that day. We got there and they told us - "just get on the plane and take any seat you can find." So, we did. We arrived in Trujillo at 7:30am and a gentleman from the hotel took us to "Huankarute" (pronounced "Juan karootA") where we joined the other 15 volunteers of the Perros Project for breakfast! Next, we were met by the hotel bird, a parrot named Chilli! (in picture to left)

Leaving for Peru in 24 hours!

We are just about set to go! I hope to update this as much as possible, but will definitely have this put together by the time I return for your viewing!