Final Days of ENP

I would just like to start by saying sorry for taking so long since the last post. I'm not actually sorry though because we have had our butts planted on the beach for the last two days and haven't had much time for blogging! Since our last posts we have finished our second week at ENP, and have flown down to Koh Samui for our week off before our next project. We will be posting beautiful pictures to make you all jealous in the next few days or so, but for now to recap our final week at ENP.

     For the last week at ENP, Jaclyn and I were with the dogs, and Lauren and Steph Pelka were with the elephants. We knew we had our work cut out for us after the other girls spent a week there. We did much of same during the week, including walking, bathing, and treating dogs. We assisted Pong in surgery, and even were fortunate enough to be allowed to scrub in for a dog neuter! Jaclyn and I were very flattered and happy that Pong trusted our skills (which we had to demonstrate ahead of time under his watchful eye!) and allowed us the opportunity to learn and assist. We are proud of the work we accomplished in such a short time, and would encourage anyone going to Thailand to consider stopping by the ENP dog shelter to lend a hand! 

   Some of our favourite patients of the week included dogs that we did twice-daily eye treatments for. Some were naughty naughty and some were very nice! We learned very quickly which were which! Naughty was a very popular word during our stay at ENP, as we discovered the many personalities of all the animal residents of the park. The pictures below show some of our daily eye treatments. Zombie and Grandma Yai are both missing one eye, the result of dog fighting. Unfortunately with so many dogs living at the park, bite wounds are a very common occurrence and can be severe. 

Sickie received eye drops twice per day, and was very friendly!

Me flushing Zombie's empty eye socket with saline to keep it clean

Grandma Yai is entirely missing her right eyeball

Grandma Yai is also the most shameless mooch

Sandy was a dog with a bite wound above the tail that had to be drained daily

     Another big problem we encountered was the parasites. This was a bit of a shock for us coming from Canada. We have our problems at home, but we have never had the opportunity to see some of these parasites in such high numbers. We spent a lot of time picking ticks off of the dogs. These ticks transit blood parasites, such as Ehrlichia and Anaplasma. Lyme disease is less of an issue in Thailand, but is still tested for. Heartworm is also a relatively common parasite in older local dogs. Blood parasites are something that we learn about in Canada, but rarely see first hand. Every other dog in Thailand seems to come in with a high fever, mucousy eyes, not eating, and we all just look at each other and sigh, "blood parasites". The ticks could be found in high numbers in the inside of the ears, and between the toes where it was warm and dark. They could also be found on our clothes after work which really freaked us out. 

     Mange is also a huge issue in the dog shelter. There is not enough man-power to keep on track with the routine medical shampoo baths to help control the skin problems we found. We bathed some of the more serious cases during our week there. This was another great learning experience for us, since we just finished our parasitology course where we learned about different types of mange, including Demodex and Sarcoptes. We did skin scrapings on several puppies and examined them under the microscope to find loads of the creepy demodex parasites. Treatment of mange is a long process, and is better prevented than cured. 

     We learned a lot in our two week stay at ENP. Although we are happy to be moving on, there are many things we will miss as we leave them behind. Special thanks to the wonderful vets we got to work with, and to Pong, the vet nurse, for being so patient and cheerful with us. We would recommend this place to anyone and are always open to answering questions! I will leave you with some pictures from our last week, and we will write again soon!

xo
Steph Pierre 

Dr P being friendly with the waterbuffalo

The delicious Thai food we ate for two weeks

Our last day: a thank you gift of locally made maple syrup and a signed Canadian flag for Dr P and Dr Rinku

Group shot from left to right: Jaclyn, Lauren, Dr. Rinku, Dr. Prasith, Steph Pelka and Steph Pierre

Saying goodbye to Pong after giving him a signed Canadian flag

First bath time on our first day!

Final elephant bath time

Jaclyn and I cooling down the hot elephants

Picking favourites in the puppy run

Getting mauled by adorable puppies in the puppy run