Mayhew International Newsletter Spring 2016

Mayhew International Issue 19

working to alleviate the suffering of animals abroad

2015 was yet another great year for Mayhew International!

In this Spring issue you can read all about what we’ve been up to in Afghanistan, Moscow and India and also find out about our appeal to help three orphaned bear cubs in Georgia.

Dr Mo teaching at the Nowzad clinic in Kabul.

Spring 2016

Mayhew International in Afghanistan Our Afghanistan Project Manager Dr Mohammadzai, spent 3 weeks in Kabul at the end of last year where he provided veterinary training and met with various Afghan government officials and agencies to discuss Mayhew International’s animal welfare strategy for the city.

First stop was Tigger House in Kabul, which is run by the Afghanistan Stray Animal League (ASAL). Dr Mo assessed all of the animals at the centre and identified those who were in need of veterinary assistance and surgical procedures. He worked closely with the Tigger House vets, especially one who was newly appointed, so he could provide expert training and help them gain valuable practical experience in surgery.

During his time there, Dr Mo was able to show the vets neutering techniques for dogs and flank spays for cats.

Advice was also given on anaesthesia, vaccination protocols and flea and worm treatments, as well as managing common shelter conditions such as diarrhoea, vomiting and skin problems.

Before leaving Tigger House, Dr Mo helped the vets neuter an elderly 3-legged dog. This was a difficult case as the dog had shown signs of asthma and a mild systolic heart murmur was detected. Dr Mo decided to transfer the dog to the Nowzad Clinic for the surgery where there is access to gas anaesthesia and the surgery went well.

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Mayhew International _ Spring 2016

Dr Mo met up with Dr Ayubi, the Dean of the Veterinary Faculty at Kabul University, to discuss the results of the dog population survey that Mayhew International carried out in February last year and the next steps of the project. He also presented the project and findings to the Ministry of Agriculture and representatives of WHO, the FAO, Rabies in Asia Foundation amongst others, who have now formed a Rabies Action Committee which includes Mayhew International. The committee were in favour of the programme progressing to the next stage and in agreement that the present culling of street dogs should cease before the programme was initiated.

Mayhew International donated a chemistry analyser to Nowzad and a chemistry analyser and x-ray processor to Kabul University, which both were delighted to receive. The chemistry analyser is used to analyse blood samples, meaning the vet team can get results in less than 5 minutes and treatment can be started immediately afterwards. This will save valuable time when diagnosing symptoms and Dr Mo spent time at both facilities training staff on how to use the machines.

Above: Dr Mo checks up on a patient post-surgery.

Above: cleaning up a kitten with cat flu at Tigger House.

Above: In surgery at the Nowzad clinic.

Above: Teaching the Nowzad team how to use the chemistry analyser.

Above: Getting warm and dry and plenty of TLC.

Dr Mo also visited Kabul Zoo and donated some veterinary textbooks to the team there, and he even managed

to catch up with his dog survey team from earlier last year. That was one jam-packed trip, well done Mo!

www.themayhew.org

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Mayhew International in Moscow In October last year the Mayhew International team were in Moscow touching base with the projects we support and fund over there and providing training to Russian vets.

The Mayhew’s Chief Vet, Ursula Goetz, spent three days training 7 vets and vet students on safe neutering techniques in cats and dogs. The participants came from several charitable groups in and around Moscow: Human Ecology, Fond Dingo, Big Hearts Foundation and PetFund.

Mayhew International had funded the purchase of a mobile gas anaesthesia machine for Human Ecology’s newly built ‘Sterilisation point’ in Odintsova, near Moscow, but sadly it was still stuck in customs during our time there.

neutering initiative in collaboration with PetFund with one of the vets who attended the training, who works at a commercial practice outside Moscow.

However, despite challenging conditions as the clinic is not yet fully functional, the team was able to improvise using the resources available to carry out the vital training. The training covered not only surgery techniques, but also preand post-operative care and welfare of the animals, a vital component of any Trap, Neuter, Return programme. Time was limited but we plan to return in 2016 for further training and all the participants enjoyed the programme.

Our cat neutering programme with Human Ecology was extended to dogs in 2015 and by the end of the year the team there had neutered a total of 765 cats and 402 dogs.

Mayhew International _ Spring 2016

Above: PetFund visiting a home for children with special needs.

In 2015 our funding of local charity Fond Dingo enabled them to carry out 327 neutering operations. We also supported them by providing 12 private apartment shelters with food and cleaning materials, and assisting them with the production of information leaflets on neutering.

We paid a visit to a Moscow home for children with special needs to see PetFund, the human-animal bond project that is similar to our TheraPaws programme here in the UK, in action.

We attended with two dogs and spent time with two groups of children and Our support of the neutering programmes toddlers. The children were entranced with Fond Dingo and Human Ecology by the dogs and keen to interact under will continue in 2016, and we are supervision with them. The staff at the pleased that there will be a further home told us how the children love the 4

Above: The Mayhew’s Chief Vet, Ursula, teaching neutering techniques.

Above: Two more of PetFund’s happily rehomed dogs

dog visits – it’s one of their favourite activities.

Mayhew International’s support of the Petfund project has enabled them to rescue, rehabilitate and rehome 32 street and shelter dogs in 2015. And at the end of the year there were an www.themayhew.org

additional 4 dogs in rehab and training for the project. 20% of the dogs rehomed via the programme continue to volunteer as therapy dogs. Seeing how intelligent and loving the dogs are has greatly improved the image of street and rescue dogs in Moscow and the programme is growing from strength to strength.

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Mayhew International in India

Bear Cub Appeal

Mayhew International was back in Ooty at the WVS International Training Centre (ITC) in October last year.

Mayhew International put out an urgent appeal to help three orphaned bear cubs in Tbilisi, found abandoned following the floods in June last year.

Mayhew Vet, Susan Darnell-Cometti, headed to Ooty in southern India in October last year to spend two weeks teaching vet students at the ITC. In total there were ten students attending the training programme (seven from India and three from Bangladesh) which focused on small animal surgery.

Tbilisi Municipal Dog Shelter took them in as there was nowhere else for them to go and has been caring for them as best they can since then. But these are wild animals and living in captivity and in such an environment is unacceptable for the bear cubs.

Above: Susan received a warm welcome at the ITC.

The focus of Susan’s training was around neutering techniques on dogs.

They had a trapping team at the ITC who would catch stray dogs, bring them in to the centre to be neutered and then return them back to where they were found as part of a Trap, Neuter, Return programme. The training started with anaesthesia techniques and how to prepare the animals for surgery and progressed to surgery and post-operative care.

Conditions were challenging as there were often five surgeries going on at one time, hot water was in short supply and resources were scarce. The lights would often go out and anaesthesia had to be administered by injection (which is harder to control than gas anaesthesia), but Susan and the team maintained exceptionally high standards throughout and managed to neuter a total of 160 dogs over 2 weeks.

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Mayhew International _ Spring 2016

Seeing their plight, Mayhew International immediately offered to help the shelter find a suitable outlet for them. We are now working with Georgia’s Ministry of the Environment & Natural Resources and Tbilisi’s Animal Monitoring Agency to secure their safe passage to a bear and wolf sanctuary in ‘Arcturos’, Northern Greece, with the help of the Born Free Foundation.

Above: Susan demonstrating neutering techniques to one of the students.

Some members of the public also brought in their dogs to be neutered as well as a couple of cats and Susan was able to teach the students how to do a flank spay on a cat.

We were pleased to see some familiar faces at the ITC: Dr Ashwin, Dr Jawahar and Dr Vinay, who have all received training with Mayhew International here in the UK.

Thanks to you, our generous supporters, we have raised over £5000 and we have been able to provide some simple enrichment and additional foods for the bears, as well as building winter dens for them to keep warm and dry whilst the process of getting a CITES export licence is carried out with the Georgian Government. We hope that the bears will be able to begin the journey in February 2016 to Greece. The money raised will also go towards the transportation costs and we expect www.themayhew.org

Above: We hope the bears will begin their journey to Greece in February.

they will be flown from Tbilisi to Thessalonika and then complete the final leg by road.

A big thank you to everyone who donated! We have a target of £10,000 so if you’d still like to help the bears on their journey to freedom, you can donate here: www.themayhew.org/ journey-to-freedom 7

Your support really makes a difference.

Thanks to you, Mayhew International had a great year in 2015. Here’s what you helped us to achieve…

• We neutered 11,814 dogs • 1075 cats were neutered • We vaccinated 11,366 dogs against rabies • We trained 78 vets and students • Our Education Officer in Ranchi, India reached 93,132 children and 17,667 adults in the community

Call: 020 8206 5870 www.mayhewinternational.org international@mayhewanimalhome.org