If you drink coffee or tea, it’s time to make yourself one, take a seat and read this report about a very interesting vet trip.

But first, the shelter is seeing a major change at the entrance, with the development of a clinic, surgery and office / store, which is very exciting and needs a lot of discussion, organisation and planning. It also needs funding and we are shortly to launch a “Brick by Brick, Paw by Paw” fundraising campaign to sponsor the construction.

We appreciate that this is the ‘cart before the horse’ but the project has got a head of steam and the wheels are rolling, if we put it off until later, we could wait for the cows to come home and besides, we are confident that our chickens will hatch and they will come home to roost !

So enough of the metaphors, as you can see from the photos, the area is taking shape.

Having arrived at the shelter @ 09:00 it was 2 hours later that I left the shelter with 11 dogs on board en-route to Purpoon Clinic.

Max, Dusty & Judy White were in the front with me this week and when I accelerated hard, the windscreen washers squirted as Max wanted to be looking through the same bit of screen that I did and Judy & Dusty took turns to climb on my lap and see just how close they could get to me. I must say, Judy won by a mile, she hugged me real tight.

At the vet, Max was first to be seen. This morning we noticed he had clotted blood on his head and also his eyes were turning blue just lately. The vet shaved away the surrounding hair and revealed 3 puncture wounds.

Dr Beer flushed them out and dressed his head, bringing back memories of a year ago when we were accustomed to seeing Max with his ears bandaged every week.

Max’s eye’s it would seem have got his old complaint back, ‘Dry Eye’ which is currently causing him to have runny and blueing eyes. He is getting on in years which doesn’t help and the slight corneal ulcers caused by the dry eye will need drops possibly for the rest of his life.

Judy White was next to be seen, this week she had been peeing blood in her urine and Dr Beer suggested an xray to reveal anything happening inside her bladder.

The result was just a load of poo.

There is no obvious explanation of the blood but we shall observe her more closely in the coming days.

Judy is now very old. We think she may well be the oldest resident in the shelter in terms of age.

She has a heart murmur, severe arthritis and a history of tumors but she is hanging in there and has a great appetite and a very pleasant nature.

We hope we can give her the comfort she needs at her time of life.

Dusty was next up on the table and although we are waiting in terms of queue length, to have her Entropion operation done, she has become lethargic.

The vet listened to her lungs and they appear to be moist, rattling & weezy. Seems she has pneumonia.

So now we need to deal with that, before we can put her under anesthetic for the eye op.

Tac, a gorgeous looking guy took a turn for the worse this week, becoming depressed, high temperature and going off his food.

We had reacted correctly it would seem in the meantime, as tests today showed he had lost his temperature, he seems brighter but we have done a blood test to ascertain if something more sinister is eating him up.

This weekend, folks at the petrol pump we often visit at lunch times, told us about a recently dumped Chiwawa dog on the pump forecourt. He was brought to the shelter as he has runny eyes & nose and in any case too small to just leave wandering around without someone to help him.

Dr Beer did the tear test, the blue light test and took blood to investigate a theory she was forming. When she pulled the eye lids back, the profusion of tiny blood vessels and the blue ring around the outside of the Iris gave her one diagnosis. The onset of Glaucoma.

Next came the blood result. Under the microscope & sadly not on my camera, was a very scary view. Many strings of red circles like a chain, swirling around in the microscopic view of the blood sample. Here are a few images that google finds …

Dr Beer suggested this could be Typonosome, a blood parasite and very rare in Chiang Mai. When we discussed this at the clinic & later at the shelter, we realised we had come into contact with dogs with this a couple of times over the years and it is very serious.

Listening to Pacco’s heart, the vet recognised abnormal behavior and suggested Heart Worm but without spending a lot of money on a specific test, we could not be sure. His lungs were weezy too, so the sounds of the body through the stethoscope earpiece were rather strange but the irregular drum beats were distinct.

Blood results also showed she has poor liver condition.

With so many things going on, maybe the dumpers of this little fluffy bundle of fun, got a little worried at the thought of spending money on treating him in this condition.

But this dog was a family dog, possibly bought from a market or breeder and kept by a family that did not consider the ever present risks of blood parasites.

Yet again, Care for Dogs witnesses the dangers of dogs not being vaccinated. It is cases like this that reinforce our commitment to vaccinating as many dogs as possible and enforcing the regime of vaccinations for puppies and other dogs that pass through our shelter or live at temples or on streets where we visit.

He is now on some medication but this are early days for him, the struggle & the treatment to overcome all of his issues may well itself kill him.

Dog number 6 today was Bhee. He has been seen by many passers by, hopping on 3 legs with the 4th one raised up, jay-walking the Samoeng Road & Canal Road, near Nong Kway market.

This week someone pointed out that his left eye was very runny so we brought him to the shelter to join this week’s vet run.

Dr Beer took her magical blue torch and shone it into Bhee’s left eye and immediately diagnosed Posterior Lense Luxation. Well that’s not the words she used but I understood what she meant & as you now realise, I google a lot!

When she looked at his left back leg, the one he preferred to carry, not touching the ground, he squealed & I grimaced every time she touched his knee. She suspected a ruptured Cruciate ligament and as the link above also confirms, closer examination should only be made with the patient under anesthetic. So he will be fasted overnight and revisit the vet in the morning.

Poor Bhee, who I must say is a terrific character. So gentle and passive, cute and affectionate and for a homeless dog, he has terrific interpersonal skills.

Next up were 2 dogs who live in a house near to one of our volunteers homes, Laa & Dam. Laa is a Labrador looking dog I think but right now, without hair, it’s a little hard to tell. The skin test today confirmed Dermodec Mange. His house mate, I say that as Dam (the black one) stays inside the house whilst Laa is kept outside with another dog, is a bit of a mystery.

The family say that he started to walk strangely after an injection he received. We will never know the real story but Dr Beer thinks that Dam might be suffering some sort of paralysis from a misplaced injection, or even more likely blood parasite damage & nothing but coincidence with the apparent injection.

His liver is ok & we will see what the full blood check reveals in a couple of days time. Meanwhile we shall start him on a course of blood parasite treatment & nerve improvement meds.

His emaciated and atrophied body makes you feel very sad, especially when you think about the family having 3 dogs, 2 of them here at the vets with advanced conditions. Neglect, ignorance and misplaced priorities, are issues we wrestle with daily.

Billy was next to be examined by Dr Beer.

He came to us a few months ago with awful tumors and open flesh all over his neck, back and head.

His TvT treatment has now finished and we would very much like to return him to where he came from. But a hole at the top of his nose, near his eye, is constantly full of mucus and looks as if it could be something sinister.

The vet tentatively looked at the little hole and soon realised he was in pain and feeling very uncomfortable with her investigation.

So Billy will also come in again tomorrow for further examination under anesthetic but Dr Beer already thinks Billy’s eye and the bridge of his nose, may have been severely damaged by the invasion of TvT, eroding the bone.

Khaow came to the shelter a while ago with very little hair. She resembled a tiny Rhinoceros with her folds of skin on her rump, folding over her tail. She has been very grumpy & intolerant and her hair remains sparse and her skin totally exposed except for her front legs.

Today it all became clear.

Dr Beer opened a book at the page, revealing Khaow’s condition to be typical of Cushings Syndrome, although this link doesn’t show images, many others on the net do and the photo I took today is identical to the book & others on the web.

Comedones, or to you and me, Black Heads or Acne are a further symptom of the syndrome and therefore Khaow seems to have over productive Adrenal Glands.

The other reason she came along today was that she has started limping. Currently it’s on her front right leg but the joints in that leg and the other 3 are noisy and likely to be suffering with pain & stiffness. Once again very much symptomatic of Cushings.

Magnum who for those that haven’t read previous vet trips, has been in this collar now for 8 months, trying to protect him from biting his own foot, which has a serious wound that just seems not to heal.

After a glucose test last week, proving that he is not diabetic, he has been on a new medication and the wound this week looks more healthy & definitely on the mend (again) so lets hope he gives it a chance to fully heal.

It was a long vet trip & most were asleep by the time we headed off back to the shelter. Exhausted ! A bit like this report really!