Vet runs can be very depressing at the best of times but today just capped the lot.

There is no good news in this post, it’s all doom, gloom & disaster and if you need cheering up, click your browser ‘Back’ button now and avoid any further anxiety that is sure to arise from reading the remainder of this post.

Well there is some good news but it is hard to identify!

Today I drove away from the shelter in the newly acquired Care for Dogs pick up truck loaded with 8 dogs, after Kh Grib, Nod & Sai had finished loading the truck.

There were some happy smiley faces here today !

Enroute to the vet, I called to  see Fred, our Dutch website webmaster & translator, as one of his dogs Chino had started to show signs of illness and he wanted her to see the vet.

At Fred’s home, I met up with some old friends, numerous dogs that Fred & his dear wife have taken into their lovely home on the side of Doi Suthep.

So now there were 9 dogs in the truck!

In the cab with me, I had a cool box containing some vaccines for some pups that Gill is fostering, so when I dropped that off she announced that in addition to a 10th dog, Charlie, she also needed to take along a mother cat who was developing some lumps in her breast area.

So with 10 dogs, 1 cat, Gill and a lot of traffic, we headed off to the vet.

After waiting for appropriate parking at the vets, we finally unloaded the truck and divided the 5 dogs that today were going for sterilisation from the others that were for inspection.

The sterilisations today were from Wat Nong Pla Mun, the temple where the Prem Center are currently mobilising the youthful vitality to help the dogs near the school. These are just 2 of the 5 gorgeous girls being sterilised today, they are very friendly and well socialised, reflecting the amount of human contact they are receiving at their home.

First up on the table was Charlie, the ‘Mistaken Identity‘ guy we wrote about a few days ago.

Today we were having his eyes checked and the tear test showed a resounding big fat zero on the scale. This demonstrates that he has no tears, his tear glands have packed up and this explains his severe corneal ulcers.

His blood test came back showing improvements from his last check, so at least the care that Gill & co. are giving him in that respect is showing results.

But sadly, the eyes are not likely to recover from their poor condition and if he is able to see anything, it is not through his pupils, as they don’t react to light at all.

Poor little guy.

Next up was Chino. Now Fred had asked me why I was coming alone to the house this morning, as this little monster was so difficult to catch & handle that I gathered he inferred I would not be able to touch her & if I did, I would need hand protections to stop her biting me.

Well on the way to the vet, in the cab, Chino became so affectionate, that I used up a roll of tissue wiping the saliva from the steering wheel and had quite a rapport going with her when I needed to turn the wheel or use the side mirrors.

Fred was amazed at the sight of other people being able to handle her but as is often the case when a dog is with a stranger or in a new situation, they react differently and as with Chino, quite out of character.

Fred was very concerned about Chino collapsing and going off her food. The vet listened to her heart & lungs and returned bad news. Dr Beer revealed that Chino has a lot of moisture in her lungs and they are not working well.

She also said that the heart is not clear, showing signs of heart disease, coupled with her being old and fat (Dr Beer’s terminology) the diagnosis was that she needed to go on a diet in order to prolong what short life she may have left.

So Chino falling over when she gets up from rest it seems is possibly due to her strength but when the vet checked her ears, it was clear that her balance was probably affected by their condition too.

Full of wax, ticks and filthy, moist & black, we could feel the anguish in Fred’s face and now tend to understand Fred’s story about her not being easy to catch and handle.

So after a clean up and some prescribed meds, Chino was going home with Fred which we all knew was not what Fred had envisaged happening today.

However, our next patient was sadly not going home with us.

Nick was picked up from near San Sai market yesterday and after an initial trip to a vet nearby, who suggested that the dog had eaten a bone & become constipated, we were looking for a second (decent) opinion of how we could help this frail creature.

Indeed he was screaming periodically from an abdominal pain and his penis was emitting a rancid smelling urine of its own volition, without nicks control. One minute he was anxious and crying, the next limp and weak.

Dr Beer looked at his gums which were bright white with no signs of blood at all and felt his bony body. She took blood, which was extremely difficult to extract, after she found a vein to give it and arranged for an xray to be taken of his abdomen.

The blood result showed he was a breathing miracle but the xray showed he was a fated disaster.

It became apparent that this poor little creature had been involved in an accident of some kind, crushing his left leg and the hip. This it seems had happened quite some time ago, as the bones had now joined through calcification into an abnormal position and this in turn had caused for the large intestine passage to be restricted and this has backed up the faeces, which in turn had caused massive infection inside the body.

In this photo of the xray, the mass of white is the condensed bone of the left leg & hip and the large balloon is the dogs trapped faeces.

The outlook for Nick was not good. If the vet were to take any action, she said the result was by no means certain and his chances of recovery were very poor, not just because of his chronic blood condition but the complexity of his intestine / hip region damage, to save him through surgery and medications, might actually kill him.

It is never an easy decision at times like this. All too often we see dogs in agony and distress and wish we could help them. Our decision to help Nick leave his life of misery was a difficult but clear one to make.

During the waiting period between tests, Dr Beer took a look at Tao Tao, the big guy we have been treating for the past 2 months for TvT – Transmissible Venereal Tumor.

We brought him along today for Dr Beer to assess his palette.Dr Beer says he has a Cleft Palette.

When people have a Cleft Pallette, they typically also have a cleft lip. This is from a birth defect that is a failure of the bones to join in the skull.

Dogs seem to suffer it too, according to google but Tao Tao’s case is different. He is suffering this condition because the roof of his mouth has a hole in it, caused by TvT eating the bones in his skull.

He now has a sizeable hole between his mouth and nose and therefore snorts a lot, like a snuffle or a knuffle and shows some signs of difficulty when eating.

Well, he is putting weight on, so he seems to be taking food in but maybe he is adapting to his new condition. Dr Beer suggested that cleaning his mouth now & again with Saline, was all that needed to be done and said that Thai vets did not have experience of Cleft Palette surgery and in any case, Tao Tao’s bone were in such poor condition, it would unlikely be a success.

Our final canine patient today was Dam.

Yesterday he was rescued from a temple in Mae Jo, where Karin has been feeding and caring for the many dogs there for a long time now.

Dam was noticeably lethargic and weak.

This morning his nose started to bleed and a full blood test showed he is suffering from renal failure and if we act quickly with appropriate transfusions and supportive treatment, if he is strong enough, he may pull through. If his body is not up to the treatment, he may die.

Dr Beer put an intravenous drip into Dam straight away.

So out from under a covered & hidden cage came Mama cat who Gill is currently fostering, along with her now not so little kittens.

She is a proud mother but the impact on her mammary glands is now showing. Her glands have become infected and after giving life to her babies, she needs medication along with warm water compresses on her boobs to get her life back on track.

As an update to last weeks vet run, Barbie, the skinny wretch we picked up at the recycling yard on Canal road, died the day after with blood in very poor condition. Did she wait to be found before dying? RIP Barbie, you are in a better place now.