After a very full week at the Cube, I joined Chrys at a free rabies prevention clinic being administered in one of the “compounds” (like a township) in Lusaka by the Lusaka Animal Welfare Society (LAWS). The compound – Matera – is one of the poorer areas of the city, and this is exactly the kind of area that needs this type of service the most. LAWS volunteers work together with Zambian veterinary students to vaccinate as many dogs and cats as the local people bring in. A local announcement goes out prior to the clinic – this may be word of mouth, flyers, bull horn…whatever works. And it definitely worked! When we arrived at the school grounds early in the morning where the clinic was to take place (a “Basic” school for grades 1 – 9), there was a queue of men, women, kids of all sizes, and dogs/cats (of all shapes and sizes) that stretched all along the school building and through the school yard. The back of this line was going to end up waiting many hours to get their pets vaccinated.

There were a number of things going on at once. There was crowd control (I did some of this) – simply keeping the line orderly, handing out flyers that has some information about rabies and how to protect both animals and people (one side in English and one side in the native language of the area…there are more than 70 tribal dialects spoken in all of Zambia), and bringing water bowls to the dogs that were getting thirsty and tired. I wished that I had water to give to all the people also standing in line, but I could only do with what we had.

A few at a time, the animals were brought into the vaccination area (we used a nice covered breezeway and set up staging tables for the vaccines and other medicinals) where the vet students gave the shots. Many of the dogs were clued in that the shot was coming so there was a fair amount of yelping and stubborn pulling of leashes (I don’t like shots in the behind either), but things moved pretty smoothly overall. Once the shot was given, each animal was briefly examined for ticks, fleas and any other more serious ailments, and tick grease was applied to ears and other netherparts. Lovely, but effective apparently. If an animal was really looking sorry, one of the two certified vets (one Zambian, local to Matera and an American working for USAID) were called over to do an assessment and see if further treatment was needed. Further treatment would involve going to an actual vet aside from this free clinic, so the local vet was taking names and doing a little PR for his practice. Made total sense.

The final step in the process was to fill out and give each person with the animal a certificate of vaccination – generally good for 6 months. If they happened to bring a prior certificate of vaccination then they did not have to come back for a year. I did some of the certificate completion and learned very quickly what some of the most popular names for dogs are: Snoopy, Danger, Scooby, Sport…Obama was another (love it).

It was very sad that three dogs all brought to the clinic by one young boy were so sick that they had to be confiscated and put down at a nearby clinic. Since the boy was very upset to have the dogs taken – understandably – one of the volunteers went home with him to explain what had happened. More depressing was that it was discovered that the father of the boy was beating his son regularly (this information coming from a neighbor)…but there was nothing the volunteer could do in these circumstances other than try to give the father an explanation for the dogs being taken.

The day was fulfilling, tiring, and eye-opening. This is a reality I wish didn’t exist but I am glad that organizations like LAWS exists.

Till next time –