The vet trip today was a little different. Khun Grib joined me and we had just 2 dogs on board the Toyota Vios, 5 vaccinations in a cool box and clean seats & foot wells. Well, that was how it started!

It was good to share the journey to the vet with a colleague and wonderful that Khun Grib is showing such commitment to her new job at the shelter and currently seems full of  enthusiasm.

In the front with Grib was Ice cream, yes that’s the name of the puppy ! And in the back, sitting very quietly was Smokey.

At the vet’s, Smokey’s condition was discussed and Dr Beer said that during the operation 2 weeks ago, they wanted to take the head of the femur away as it was badly damaged and hoped by doing so, Smokey would have less discomfort in the hip socket and therefore might try to use the leg more.

During that op, they removed the pin that had slipped out of place and was also the now redundant as calcification of the previously broken femur had knitted the 2 pieces together at a right angle!

Today, 2 weeks on, after observing her not using the leg and staying in one place all the time, rarely moving away from the same spot, we wanted to know the vets prognosis.

Dr Beer was slightly apologetic in her explanation of the operation, saying they were unable to remove the head of the femur because it had been shattered into many pieces too long ago & the body had since knitted tissue around the fragments and therefore precluded extraction.

However, she confirmed that the ‘foreign body’ supporting pin had been removed.

So the future for old Smokey is clear. She will not get much better, at least she has no ‘secret’ pin now and if we notice her in pain, we can give her a painkiller.

Older people reading this, like me, will identify with that!

So it was to the BIG ! case of the day. Ice cream.

This little creature was left abandoned with her 5 brothers & sisters in San Kamphaeng, when their mum died not long after having given them their first milk. They are now approximately 5 weeks old.  Thankfully, some dog loving folks called us this week and we brought them to the shelter.

Ice cream has 2 problems. Firstly she has a funny lump to the top of her left leg at the hip and secondly another lump behind her right ear.

Well the vet was puzzled by the visual inspection and after Xray, all became clear. This girl is now showing the evidence of not getting that vital food source from her mum’s milk in her first month.

Her bones have not developed properly and her left femur is short and hasn’t grown. Her body is apparently coping with this by forming tissue around the joint and this is the lump we see on the outside. She is walking ok, a slight limp but appears in no pain from the leg.

But as to the other lump, that’s not the case.

After several veterinarian staff wrestled this monster to the table top, the vet was able to shave the hair, lance the flesh and extract & flush out an abscess that had possibly developed from a bite or scratch.

Wow! What a commotion from a little miracle, people in the waiting room outside could have thought we were murdering a Rottweiler!

Anyway the wound was cleaned & appropriately dressed.

On the way back to the shelter we stopped off at a building site to vaccinate Dao and her pups that we have been meaning to do for a little while now.

Greeted by the workers, they called Dao down from the 2nd floor of the building along with just 2 remaining pups of her litter of 6. But we also had another Dao look-a-like laying in the sand out the front.

So we vaccinated NewDao, Dao & her 2 pups and we have the 2 Dao’s on the waiting list for sterilisation scheduled for 2 weeks time.

Getting back into the car, Grib murmured something in Thai that I failed to understand. When I saw her holding her rucksack at arms length and asking for tissues, I deduced that Ice cream had got her own back and left her mark on Gribs bag. Those antibiotic & pain killer injections had weakened her bowel!

Back at the shelter for a clean up it was good to meet a new volunteer Ana and catch up with Irene who is now back in Chiang Mai & visiting the shelter every day.

Finally, as is our habit at this time of day, we all trooped down to the petrol pump for lunch.